Sharper subject, blurrier background

[rjlittlefield]

In responding to a question by Stanley about sharpening, I mentioned that when working with compact cameras I often end up sharpening the subject, blurring the background, and controlling the transition between the two with a layer mask. This post is to illustrate how that goes.

The final version of the picture I'm working with in this post is shown full-frame HERE, image #3. It's a female black widow spider at the top of a piece of grass, with a distant landscape in the background.

Full-frame straight from the camera, except for resizing and a bit of level adjustment, this is what it looks like:



This image has an interesting composition, to me anyway, but the subject is not as crisp as I remembered, and it doesn't separate very well from the background.

The solution is layers and masks. Here is the Photoshop layer pallette:



The sharpened layer, with its mask shown in purple, looks like this:



Here is a 200% crop, alternating between the original version and the sharpened & blurred version. (This is an animated GIF that's supposed to be switching between one and the other every 1.5 seconds.)



Note that the sharpening and blurring are not dramatic effects, and they're not intended to be.

Actually there's supposed to be nothing that would make you think the picture had been altered.

But the result, again to my eyes, is that the spider pops out a lot better from the background, while at the same time the background retains enough detail to be recognizable.

Here again is the final version, full-frame:



To alternate between the original and final versions as full frame, I suggest to open two tab panes in your browser, both viewing this same post. Scroll one pane to original version, the other pane to the final version, then click between the tabs.

Hope this helps.

--Rik

[Stanley]

Rik,

This is fantastic. I think that you have outdone even yourself. Very helpful and instructive.

Honestly, the entire photographic community owes you a debt of gratitude for your contribution to the state of knowledge in this field.

Stanley
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[Cyclops]

Good stuff Rik!
So do you carefully select around the edge of the spider and grass stem then cut and paste that into a new layer?
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[ChrisR]

That one's come up pretty well imho, Rik. I've done it a lot, and it isn't always easy to get the balance right. Often a second opinion, or another look a day later, is valuable.
What you've shown is how to get a really good effect without making it look obvious or artificial.
On a 14" screen, it looks fine.

A note*of caution to those dashing into photoshop to have a go, though.
It isn't easy to DO.
I'm using a 30" screen, which is rather unforgiving.
"Making Selections in Photosop", could fill a book. It's quite time-consuming, and difficult, to get what you need. Stanley and others, do Google for tutorials on how to do it, as there are many ways. To keep the tutorials short though, they all tend to adopt one technique, and you'll need more. I'd recommend mastering the pen tool, often starting off with the magnetic lasso tool to get roughly what you need. Convert it to a path and you can alter it with the pen tools, then convert back to a selection.
(There are many additional techniques, such as graduating the blur up the frame, so more distant objects appear further oof.)

Even then the transition, eg between dark spider leg and beigy background will cover a number of pixels, so deciding where to put the division isn't trivial. Having done that, the selection area usually has to be feathered. If you underdo or overdo that step, you're going to see some sort of halo around or within the part you've selected, in the result. This is one of the difficulties. It's one of those areas where, once you've experimented, you start to see artifacts more, in more of other people's (as well as your own)work.
"In the spirit of mutual improvement", as Rik might say, look at the leg of the spider which is furthest upper left in the picture. There's a light halo- line to the left. Check the animated gif and you'll see it isn't there in the original.
That appears to be a lightness/darkness sharpening effect.
Another sort of overlap you can get is where the mask didn't quite fit. Look at the leg furthest lower right, and you'll see a bit of dark background on the animated gif which has got sharpened, which shouldn't have done.
Actually look harder at the very end of that leg and you'll see a light halo, with a dark halo beyond it, along the side of the leg.
The final pic is slightly different.

Inevitably the forground shape - spider here, will vary slightly in outline sharpness, so the degree of feathering in the selection will need to vary too. There's no automatic way to do that, so you'll have to go round the edges of the final picture with the blur and sharpening tools, and possibly a paintbrush and clone tool as well. The only way I've found it works for sure is to do the editing at several times the magnification you need the print to be.

* was it Mark Twain who wrote, "I'm sorry this is a long letter, I didn't have time to write a short one"?!

[rjlittlefield]

[AndrewC]

Tim Grey's DVDs are good instructional material for selecting and working with layer masks. Just wish I was patient enough to use all the techniques.

Andrew