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How would you select Dancing Shiva?


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How would you select Dancing Shiva?  I thought "I'll just slap a piece of white paper behind Dancing Shiva, select the white and invert it"... boy was I wrong, multiple attempts with different selection tools and just not getting a clean selection.  I am open to all suggestions including doing something other than putting a piece of white paper in the back, but after learning the Affinity selection tools, I really thought this would be easy.

 

DancingShiva.thumb.jpg.e259c4b6ff8792e95530ba11d162774f.jpg

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Well your image is overall too dark and unevenly illuminated here, so you can't expect wonders. Do a search on the internet and look how the images of those who sell such things are illuminated instead in contrast. Make a better photo without deep shadows etc. and give it another try.

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I worked w. a number of photographers who did shots for fine art catalogues. For similar items, the object would be placed far enough forward from the blank background that side lights could be used to wash away the object's shadows on the back drop. Typically, they used a large piece of paper that was placed under the object, and then extended for several feet behind, and then up along the back. The intention was to isolate the object as much as possible from the surround so that the shadows were minimized.

 

If you are using AP, you can add an adjustment layer for shadows/highlights.  The shadows can be mostly bleached away. The selection tool will then work much better. After making selections and blanking the back ground, turn off the adjustment layer and see if what you have works. 

 

Doing that, I worked w. the upload shot, and I'd have to say you need a much better image

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Apart from the exposure problems, one of the main things when taking that sort of photo is eliminating shadows. 

 

Because the object is so close to the white card, you get very obvious shadows. Move the card much further away to start and try to illuminate that.

 

 

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It can be adjusted for light. Much of the background can be quickly removed. The it would take x amount of time to draw selections and remove the remaining background. I would think a half hour would do it at most.

 

Easier than putting together the proper lighting. 

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6 hours ago, jw432 said:

How would you select Dancing Shiva? .....I really thought this would be easy.

 

Well yes and no. The one thing you’ve got on your side is that you know what you wanted to do from the outset of this project. Much of the time photos are taken and then, as an afterthought it is sent to a software graphic editor to improve or get more from the photo. And yes, mostly this can/may be achievable.

 

As you say, you wish to extricate the figure from its surrounding impedimenta - yes?. There are several things working against you. As has been said the lighting is the key and primary factor here, however there is another which hasn’t been mention - the angle the shot was taken at. As you wished for the dancing figure to be isolated, I would have taken the initial “takes” on-axis or straight-on. The angle here is creating so many more shadow overlaps that this is unfortunately creating many more challenges that I’d have a problem to solve.

 

But there is a greater and bigger opportunity you could easily experiment with - a blue screen background. Choosing an alternative to the white card does several things. 1: It will help to prevent any reflected colour from the target, which your white card won’t. 2: Blue would be a much better “key” for Keying-out than the White card or a green card. A green screen background is far too near to the object’s brassy-greenish hue.

 

This is a great project. And as I said, you know what you are wanting. That’s definitely a bonus. The other thing is that you can control the environment. With a little application you should win!

 

So, to recap, for me it’s, lighting, shot angle and an easier, key-able background. 

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Thanks all for the great ideas!  MUCH APPRECIATED!

 

Being a newbie I thought that simply putting a white piece of paper in back would give me an easily selectable background considering that white is very different from the tone of Shiva.  I did not account for the shadows. 

 

I did quickly get a better selection, but not as good as the one v_kyr got, but using Colors -> Erase White Paper and then selecting the background/inverting.  Fortunately this is just an experiment not a necessity!  I could easily reshoot, with a flat perspective, better lighting and a piece of blue paper in back, perhaps with some distance to reduce shadows.

 

Not every desired selection gets shot under the right conditions and I really like AP, but I did expect this extraction to be easier - A good learning exercise.  Here is working version with a color background to reveal problem areas, Not final at all.  I see that I would have to chose between reducing/trying to eliminate the shadows, or embracing them an being sure to consistently keep them.  I;ve definitely improved my selection skills/knowledge with this exercise as well as my thinking about scene set up if extraction is the goal.

DancingShivaSelection.jpg

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I think it was IBM that had a catchphrase "Work Smarter, Not Harder" Life is hard enough without adding to it. Making work for yourself is not the objective lol!

Why are you taking the image?

You need a bigger white background than the one you are using, probably 4 times as big, a white wall would do and a sheet of white for the item to sit on, this way you can bring the item forward enough that it doesn't create any discernable shadows on the background, if at all possible pick an area that has natural light so that you do not need to use flash, then you can accent the item with reflectors, if needed, these are multi-use with a silver or gold side and a white or black side.

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Just been doodling as I can vaguely remember finding a studio photographic book, inside it had what looked like formula's for taking studio shots. The formula's/maps were in the form of concentric circles with lighting situated at set positions to give a particular look. They looked a bit like this:

PHOTOMAP.thumb.jpg.a174031d39927ac794901bc38361b667.jpg

Actually, while editing this I noticed a potential option for the Rotation Centre. It would be cool to be able to 'Lock' the rotation centre in position so that when an object is moved and not rotated with the rotation bar it maintains the locked rotation position. At the moment, when you rotate an object with the rotation handle and with an off-centre rotational centre, you cannot move it in and out in relation to that rotation centre. Moving the object by clicking on it if it has a fill or clicking on its stroke to move it, also moves the rotation centre in relation to the object and maintaining that rotation centre's distance...

I feel a video coming on to demonstrate...

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1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

 

Why are you taking the image?

 

I just took the image to practice/experiment with a new manual focus lens and my relatively new Fuji X-E3.  After I shot it I wondered how easy/hard it would be to extract.  I'm just am amateur who likes taking pics, likes editing them and like trying out ideas from Affinity tutorials ... As much as I like photography I am not a pro.

 

My thought in extracting it would be to composite it in some unusual background (City Street, Forest, Underwater, etc) and see if I could create tonal symmetry between the two and possibly create something unusual/interesting.  I've found that there are many times when I can get the images I want to combine but am  challenged to get believable tones when compositing.

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@jw432 Got ya.

Yes it can be difficult to get the lighting right to make it look as if it was always there. direction of lighting, colour/temperature of lighting ambience, reflections, the angle of the object etc, there are a lot of things that can make or break the illusion.

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19 hours ago, firstdefence said:

@jw432 Got ya.

Yes it can be difficult to get the lighting right to make it look as if it was always there. direction of lighting, colour/temperature of lighting ambience, reflections, the angle of the object etc, there are a lot of things that can make or break the illusion.

Even camera-to-subject distance differences can spoil the illusion. Below are two shots made during a (very!) casual test set up for compositing a 6" long model of a van into other photos. Even ignoring focus, color, lighting, & everything else wrong with the shots, note how flat the 'far' shot looks compared to the 'near' one. The 'near' shot would never look convincing if placed in the background, just as the 'far' one would never look right if placed in the foreground.

5a536d9ea8241_camdistance.png.bafabd0d8286b82122c3d4dbf89eed60.png

This is sometimes attributed to the flat, cardboard cutout look of telephoto lenses vs. the bulbous look of very wide angle lenses but it is really just due to the relative differences in camera distances between the nearest & farthest parts of the subject.

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