The Piano Man

[mugge]

We have seen and heard this street performer many times. He plays jazz and classical music. He always draws a big crowd. The hip hop et al are actually listening


The Piano Man by Ole Hansen, on Flickr

[DanK]

An nice capture.

The image has some artifacts that look like they might be motion blur.

I think it would be an improvement to make the piano player stand out more from the background. Here is a simple edit--rather crudely done--to illustrate what I mean. In both cases, I attached a black mask to the adjustment and then painted it onto the player with a white brush, leaving the background unaltered. The first was a curve to increase contrast. The second was smart sharpening (deconvolution). See what you think.

[Manfred M]

Interesting subject and capture Ole.

Have you applied a blur to the image? There are parts of the image that are blurred; the seat and the legs of the instrument, etc. that seem to be on the same plane as some of the areas that are in sharp focus. This looks rather strange.

[Shadowman]

Nicely seen and captured.

[mugge]

Dan, I do like your edits. May have to do another one.

Manfred, I did some quite heavy Gaussian blur to the background. I did not see the need for the legs of the piano to be in sharp focus. It was the top of the piano I was interested in.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, I did some quite heavy Gaussian blur to the background. I did not see the need for the legs of the piano to be in sharp focus. It was the top of the piano I was interested in.

Thanks for clarifying that Ole.

The issue that crops up when you do that is that the image looks "wrong". We are used to seeing images where sharpness varies by distance from the focus plane. If you play loose and fast with blur the viewer notices and senses that something is not quite right. That is happening with this image.

[DanK]

Ah, that probably explains what I thought was motion blur--a border of the blur that didn't quite line up.

[pschlute]

Dan, I do like your edits. May have to do another one.

Manfred, I did some quite heavy Gaussian blur to the background. I did not see the need for the legs of the piano to be in sharp focus. It was the top of the piano I was interested in.

I like the idea of the image , but this approach will not work for general photography. Over years of viewing photographs our eyes expect to see certain things in the same plane to be in focus. If they are not our brain does not like it. I spent a considerable time looking in your image for what other things were "wrong", and in consequence your subject was sidelined.

In some circumstances with a composite/special effect construction what you tried would work, but I think you need to be clear from the outset what you are doing or the viewer will be confused.

[lovelife65]

Love the image.
I do prefer the adjustments done by Dan, but overall great image with a wonderful story.