wedding shot

[ME100FINN]

I have a wedding to shoot this afternoon and asked my sister what her favorite shots here from HER wedding two years ago... this was one of them...BUT it was full of "stuff" around the image. SOOOO...here is the final touch from ME ;)

I call it Whirlwind...
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/gallery/view_img.php?id=4911

[jwhitten]

Very nice. The blur draws my eye right to the couple. :)

Joe

[NMarti]

Very nicely done Beatrice.

[Carbone]

This is totally cool! Nice effect :)

Ray

[Shari]

I love that - how would you do that Beatrice? What slows me down is when I have to do a selection of people first. I have a sore arm and am not so great at selections. That is why I am thinking of the tablet. You did an excellent job.
Shari

[ME100FINN]

I just posted the original picture - you can see the all the distractions in the photo. Let's see...how did I do this...
FIRST LAYER - original untouched
2nd LAYER (copy original using CTRL+J) - most of this wasnt too "perfect" because i knew I would blur it.
1. i worked on the cement using the clone stamp. I got rid of the shadows on the road and then went over the van too, using the far road edge as a guide.
2. Again using the clone stamp and a bit of lasso to copy and paste, I just extended the sidewalk all the way down to the right (removing the table/chairs).
3. Using the smudge tool with a large brush, I just pushed from the house all the way to the right of the picture to remove the canopy and remaining bits of vehicles. I used a bit of the clone stamp too in spots.
THIRD LAYER - copy of the fixed layer 2
1. did a bit of glaussian blur, a bit.
2. radial blur, amount 10, spin, high quality
FOURTH LAYER - cutout of the couple from original layer
1. using the magnetic lasso, i got a cutout of the couple (if extra went on the selection, thats ok...will remove with eraser next...)
2. with selection made, CTRL+J to put cutout on new layer
3. used eraser to remove unwanted spots on edges
4. blurred the edges with a big round soft brush, set opacity low so it is subtle, working it up with more strokes

Last, I cropped to my preference.

Since the last layer (cutout of couple) has the details, I ran variations of unsharpen and soft blur to get a clear image that was suitable. i dont know how it will print, but I am happy with the results. There probably is an easier way to copy and clone and remove the unwanted stuff (canopy, van, chairs), but since I knew I would radial blur, I just "made an even colored mess/blur" to put the radial blur on it.

Hope this makes sense!

[karen donnybrook]

Beatrice, you certainly improved the original photograph - Whirlwind is absolutely beautiful. :)

[virgo1]

Beatrice,
What a wonderful effect. I love it!:)
Eva;)

[ktnoon60]

Beautiful effect Bea
Kt

[Diana]

What a beautiful effect, Beatrice. It makes it appear as though the two lovebirds are off in a world of their own, with the world just a blur around them. Thanks for sharing your steps with us.

Diana