Does this pp look ok....

[OTRphoto]

or is it obviously faked???

I took this at a wedding last week. they were in the courtyard of a trailer park, and I know I could just leave those in the background.. but I thought I'd try my hand out at some cs3 post-processing (still learning...) and see what I could do.

Did I do ok.. or should I just give it to them the way it was shot? Since, as one friend put it.. they DO know they were married at a trailer park.. Or is it good enough to pass on?

Thanks.

[CaptainTom]

I think any post processing is OK, unless someone tries to represent something that it's not. In your case, nice job and I believe the "doctored" photo is ten times better.

[ngoduyviet]

Yup the doctored foto is way better, why not go a bit further and boost the saturation a little bit to bring out the sky and the grass color? it'd be perfect then

[Disney Chick]

I like it that way, too.

[OTRphoto]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I am still a little worried about how it will print (if they choose to) but I think it shouldn't be noticable up to an 8x10.. and I can't see them wanting it any bigger than that... (I hope)

And Viet - I wanted to get the background issue resolved before I did any more work on it.. but now that it seems to get a "green light" from you guys - I guess I'll finish it up tonight!

This one was the "test" pic, as I have 3-4 others in almost the same location. I know I should have posed them in a better spot, but it these were really un-planned. I walked out of the building and saw the sky and them standing there and got too excited and just had them pose real quick.. What can I say.. I'm still totally noob at this

[OTRphoto]

I've had a couple of PM's about what I did... so I figure I'll just put that info here.

And if anyone that has more experience with this stuff has any suggestions on how I could have done this better/easier/faster.. I'm ALL ears... >:o)

What I did was I copied a chunck of the grass area from the left side and pasted it as a new layer. Then I moved it up to cover the trailers. I put a layer mask on that new part and used a soft black brush to kind of blend the edges together until it looked kinda normal.

I then copied another bigger chunk from the left side (including grass, sky and clouds), inverted it horizontally and then pasted it in another new layer. I moved it over to the right side and played with its position until it didn't look too much like a mirrored image. Then I applied a layer mask and used the soft black brush to blend the edges and to paint her arm back in (but if you look close you can see I still need to do a touch up around her elbow on the right side)

[zach-e2]

two different vibes.. i dig what you did a lot!

[barP]

i think the pp is totally legit, because it needs to be about how she REMEMBERS it, not about what the camera saw. chances are that on that particular day, the trailers and the neighbors weren't on her mind. and, you did a good job.

but...whattup with that very tiny person in the background? not sure what it is, and it's distracting from the girl. i think you could also make it even more compelling with a different crop, but that's very subjective, and my opinion is worth what you paid for it. ;-)

wp.

[OTRphoto]

Originally Posted by barP

but...whattup with that very tiny person in the background?

That was the flower girl in same color dress... To me I like the look of her in the background.. but then again.. I'm expecting it and know what it is... I can see where it can be distracting.

Shes right smack in solid color grass.. shes the easist thing to clone out in the whole pic if I need to.. lol

[Disney Chick]

I was coming in to ask about that little person myself. It actually doesn't look real to me. The perspective is strange. I would take it out if it was my photo. Great job with all that processing!

[Wes]

The pp version looks good, but what is that thing behind and to the left of her? Looks pretty out of place; I'd see if I could lose that one, too.