My son sitting in a sofa, a good background?

[Catalina]

I would respectfully ask you some questions:
-Is the horizontal line of the sofa a bad background?
-How to avoid this distracting horizontal element when I am taking photos of the family in the living room?
-The colors are fading, is it there something to do in post production to revive this photo with a great sentimental value?
-should I crop the photo and how? I don't like that his right hand is cropped.

Thanks in advance for your interest and time.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Catalina,

The horizontal line of the sofa would not have been my choice but if it was just a quick snapshot of his pose it may very well explain it.

It is normal practice to move the subject away from the background and use an aperture that will cause it to be out of focus but the subject sharp.

Here's a very very quick edit on the photo to give you an idea of what is extremely easily achieved. I have done a crop to basically retain the ratio, but there are many possibilities.

Note how the detail has been enhanced in the jumper, it's been sharpened and I have put back some colour but not sure what the true skin tone should be.



Grahame

[Catalina]

Hi Catalina,

The horizontal line of the sofa would not have been my choice but if it was just a quick snapshot of his pose it may very well explain it.

It is normal practice to move the subject away from the background and use an aperture that will cause it to be out of focus but the subject sharp.

Here's a very very quick edit on the photo to give you an idea of what is extremely easily achieved. I have done a crop to basically retain the ratio, but there are many possibilities.

Note how the detail has been enhanced in the jumper, it's been sharpened and I have put back some colour but not sure what the true skin tone should be.



Grahame

[Catalina]

dear stagecoach:

Or graham?

-You have answered my question with very good concepts that you are letting me know about.
-Your version improve this photo a lot, I love the colors and love the new crop,
-are you talking about depth of field?
- I know that you attain depth of field when you open the lens big but it is about all I know about it I will have to practice because it seem the solution for many many troubles I have with the background.

Thank you for your kindness

[Stagecoach]

dear stagecoach:

Or graham?

-You have answered my question with very good concepts that you are letting me know about.
-Your version improve this photo a lot, I love the colors and love the new crop,
-are you talking about depth of field?
- I know that you attain depth of field when you open the lens big but it is about all I know about it I will have to practice because it seem the solution for many many troubles I have with the background.

Thank you for your kindness

Hi Catalina,

Yes, I'm referring to DOF (depth of field). A wide open aperture say f2.8 (small f No) will give you a shallow DOF whereas a smaller aperture opening say f22 (large No) will give you a deeper DOF. The DOF will vary depending upon the focal length of the lens and the distance between camera and subject.

So if you want to practice place your subject about 6ft from a wall and take shots at various apertures and look at the different affect on the background.

There are tables called DOF Calculators that will give the near enough figures of what will be within acceptable sharpness. If you are taking portraits and use too wide an aperture the DOF can be so narrow that you can get the eyes sharp but the nose will be out of focus because the DOF is too narrow. Easy to practice with something of similar proportion and size to a head.

Grahame

[Ken MT]

I have blurred the background in Elements, but it is easier to have the blur as you take the photo. This reduces the distraction of the background.

[Marie Hass]

Catalina, how about posting some of your own current work? It would be more advantageous to critique stuff that you took recently?

Marie

[Catalina]

Soon I will post my own work. My camera was not functioning well, but now I fixed the problem.

[jcuknz]

Since it is a treasured photo of your now big strapping lad I ventured to adjust the photo using my prefered editor which as I mentioned before in Paint Shop Pro and has been for must be a decade or so now. I am not into restoring photos so my efforts in that direction is limited by lack of knowledge ... but correcting my own errors in the field has given me practice.
Hope you like what I did here tools used firstly increase canvas size to make room for the shoulder and elbow tip, 'clone' [ copy] adjacent material as I did with the date of your photo of the floral arrangement, I also used my favourite tool 'Curves' to increase contrast, and the new tool that PSP have added to PSPx6 which delights me 'Smart Selection Brush' which usually makes selecting out areas much easier than before. While I had the curtain selected I filled the area with a tone from the original curtain.


edit ... I also sharpened prior to posting.