Help required to create a frame worthy picture!

[Ryan263]

Hi, my wife took this image of our 3yr old daughter at ballet. We would very much like to have this gracing on of walls; and the grand parents would also like a copy too!
I would like the background faded as much as possible and then gray scaled, whilst maybe retaining some of the colour in my daughters ballet costume and shoes. I am however open to suggestion and any help would be gratefully received.

 

[Argos]

I was trying to do something diferent but i dont have time to do it right or finished right now, sorry.

 

[Ryan263]

That is still significantly better than what I could do! Thank you

 

[colleague]

maybe like this

 

[Tom Mann]

Going along with brainstorming various ideas, I think a little motion blur, moving the subject off of center and re-cropping would help, but I'm between meetings and didn't have time to get it right(*), but something along these lines, perhaps. I also added a (very obviously) fake frame to show how it might look. Also, because Colleague did such a nice job at isolating the subject, I hope you don't mind, but I started with your version to make this little sketch.

Sorry ... got to run.

Tom M

(*) - By "get it right", I was thinking of suggesting both horizontal and vertical motion, maybe a curved blur trail, not just the simple horizontal blur like I did to quickly knock out this draft version. Also, maybe a two-toned or gradient background to suggest the difference between the wall in back of her and the floor underneath her.

 

[dv8_fx]

Hi, my wife took this image of our 3yr old daughter at ballet. We would very much like to have this gracing on of walls; and the grand parents would also like a copy too!
I would like the background faded as much as possible and then gray scaled, whilst maybe retaining some of the colour in my daughters ballet costume and shoes. I am however open to suggestion and any help would be gratefully received.

If she was dancing to music, any chance you remember what it was?

It might be good to add a blurred background scene related to the music.... eg Nutcracker, Swan Lake....

 

[Tom Mann]

The other obvious possibility is to put some motion blur on the background instead of the subject. This simulates a photographer dragging his shutter (i.e., using a longer than usual shutter duration) and panning his camera with the subject. An example of this technique is shown in this tutorial:
http://www.picturecorrect.com/tips/how-to-create-realistic-motion-blur-in-photoshop/

Because the background of this photo has a lot of large scale structure (eg, the wooden doors, the heater, kick plates at the bottom of the doors, etc.), I don't think this alternate approach will produce as pleasing a result as the blur-the-subject approach could be made to look (i.e., not my little example, but doing it correctly), but it would certainly be interesting for someone to compare the two approaches.

Just a thought.

Tom M

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi, Vee, I see we were both typing at the same time and had the same idea to give an approach which either blurs or replaces the background a try. +1

T

 

[Argos]

Maybe is a bit to much, but this is my interpratation

 

[Ryan263]

maybe like this

thats fantastic!

thank you so much!

 

[Ryan263]

Going along with brainstorming various ideas, I think a little motion blur, moving the subject off of center and re-cropping would help, but I'm between meetings and didn't have time to get it right(*), but something along these lines, perhaps. I also added a (very obviously) fake frame to show how it might look. Also, because Colleague did such a nice job at isolating the subject, I hope you don't mind, but I started with your version to make this little sketch.

Sorry ... got to run.

Tom M

(*) - By "get it right", I was thinking of suggesting both horizontal and vertical motion, maybe a curved blur trail, not just the simple horizontal blur like I did to quickly knock out this draft version. Also, maybe a two-toned or gradient background to suggest the difference between the wall in back of her and the floor underneath her.

i love the idea of creating some motion blur and a two tone gradient background. I intend on printing the image onto a piece of acrylic without a frame so maybe a little feathering at the edges too? I used to play around with photoshop many years ago however I lost touch, and it's moved on so much now!

 

[Ryan263]

If she was dancing to music, any chance you remember what it was?

It might be good to add a blurred background scene related to the music.... eg Nutcracker, Swan Lake....

she was practising some sort of ballet run; that's as much as I know! The wife took this photo with her iPhone 6 and I don't think there was music playing

 

[Eggy]

My contribution:



I didn't know if it had to be in that room?

 

[thebestcpu]

A lot of creative ideas on how to approach your project.

I'll go back to a basic question. Is this the original image out of the iphone 6. As you can see from this crop of the posted image there is quite a bit of noise/posterization or jpeg artifacts. If what you posted is not the full unedited original image, then there might be a better starting point for any of the creative approaches. Just a thought:

 

[Ryan263]

A lot of creative ideas on how to approach your project.

I'll go back to a basic question. Is this the original image out of the iphone 6. As you can see from this crop of the posted image there is quite a bit of noise/posterization or jpeg artifacts. If what you posted is not the full unedited original image, then there might be a better starting point for any of the creative approaches. Just a thought:

View attachment 62456

yes this is indeed the original photo. It was a lucky snap shot which I was hoping could be turned into something a little more special. Ordinarily I wouldn't ask but I'm under pressure from the wife! Appreciate its not the finest quality but this is it in its raw form