NON Square Cropped Portraits - (nSCP's) - Archive

[Alis]

If you guys don't mind, we will call this "Little Bono":

[Antonio Correia]

Pretty good Alis but too much room above his head...
Very cool image.

Now, these days, he likes to be photographed doesn't he ?

Am I correct or once you said he didn't like to be photographed ?

Oh that so loved and cherished Teddy Bear...

[Alis]

Pretty good Alis but too much room above his head...
Very cool image.

Now, these days, he likes to be photographed doesn't he ?

Am I correct or once you said he didn't like to be photographed ?

Oh that so loved and cherished Teddy Bear...

Thanks, Antonio! I thought about crop but I am at work right now and can not do anything about it. I usually process them uncropped for printing these days. So no other version was at hand.

The other problem it has, and you can confirm it, is too much cyan/blue maybe? I think specially the hair does look a little bit too blue.

And you guessed right, he amazingly stood there while I took about 100 pictures from different angles. But then later at the park, did not repeat it, so he is still trying to tease me with that. But I am getting close.

[Antonio Correia]

At this very moment I am not in my iMac but on my iBook which ha different color rendition and where I do not treat my pictures.
Here it looks perfect. I can't access the other computer now. I think I will remeber t tell youlater when I get there.

Afer all I do not have the htc mobile. Some problems came up with the operator and I sent it back to them. Soon, one week may be, I will have an iPhone and there I also will be able to let you know how the images look like.

Thanks for posting Alis

[Antonio Correia]

The hair has indeed a bit of blue, which I didn't see on the other computer.

Nice pic Alis

[Antonio Correia]

[Alis]

Comments welcome as always:

[KentDub]

Hi Ali,

I want to know what he's looking at! He makes whatever it is seem so interesting

Cropping out the knee might improve the image a bit (or adding more of the leg back in). It looks abruptly cut off. The bright orange overpowers his face - but has such an amazing contrast of vibrance with the rest of the image I like it

[Alis]

Hi Ali,

I want to know what he's looking at! He makes whatever it is seem so interesting

Cropping out the knee might improve the image a bit (or adding more of the leg back in). It looks abruptly cut off. The bright orange overpowers his face - but has such an amazing contrast of vibrance with the rest of the image I like it

Thanks, Kent!

He is making a ginger bread cookies with mommy and his hands are all sticky with the dough.

I agree with the cropping. And also with the overpowering orange. I have to do something about, may be make it less shiny.

[Dave Humphries]

~ with the overpowering orange. I have to do something about, may be make it less shiny.

Would that involve Photoshop, or an abrasive and a bottle of dye?

If the latter, you run the risk of "Watch out, here comes mommy!

[Colin Southern]

Would that involve Photoshop, or an abrasive and a bottle of dye?

One or the other

[Alis]

None of those, Dave. I meant digital , some kind of deshining.

Using a dye will result in something like what Colin did here. Now his arm is all messed up.

Colin, wouldn't it be better not to use the paintbrush for this? I was planning to select the area based on the color range, since it is such a unique color, and then change the color for the selected area, may be tone it down a little bit, and then wipe out any other area that may have been selected based on the color range, to mask them. I think that would be much cleaner that this. Or may be you were just joking and did a quick 12 sec (TM) Makeover?

[Colin Southern]

Colin, wouldn't it be better not to use the paintbrush for this?

Hi Ali,

I used the quick selection tool, and increased the selection by 2 pixels. There's a very simple reason why the arm is the way it is ...

... bozo-brain here completely missed it! (sorry about that!). Selecting based on colour is good in theory - but doesn't work as well in practice (try it, you'll see what I mean).

Probably the best technique here is to use the quick selection tool - save it as an alpha mask - and then just touch up the mask directly.

[KentDub]

In my experience the success of selecting by color goes up directly with the quality of camera and the assumption of a correct exposure.

I've done a fair amount of chroma-screen work for video and the best video to work with was always shot on a 3CCD camera. People often why they can't chroma screen objects from a video taken with a single CCD camera - even though it is perceptually pure green/blue. The answer is tools like this depend greatly on technical accuracy - not perceptual accuracy. This is an example of where "In theory it makes a difference, but in practice it dosn't" dosn't really hold up - because that statement is often said is talking about perceptual difference, but there still is a technical difference ("applied theory", if you will). Of course, some things will have a bigger impact than others - that, however, dosn't mean ignore the details. Take Jpeg for example - you wouldn't be able to use these tools with an image in that format with great success (jpeg compression destroys color information, creating huge blocky areas - even in it's highest quality modes). Even though jpegs are correct for our preception of the image, they are technically subpar - especially regarding color information. So even if you "can't tell a difference" - tools may and most likely will work better having more technically correct information to work with.

Color range selection works great for "proportional masks" (i.e. more than a cookie-cutter black/white mask) - a mask that fades in/out depending on how well it matched the selection criteria. This can be desirable sometimes. Running levels or curves on the resulting mask can help a lot too.

In order to achive the 1-bit cookie-cutter mask with minimal effort on a complex image, you need absolute technical perfection, from equipment, lighting, exposure, white ballance, color management, etc. for it to work correctly.

[Alis]

You guys were right. I tried different methods, none worked. The orange glow of the apron spills over the adjacent areas. Even when I select the orange of the apron, it is not homogenous and it will be messed up. Increasing the fuzziness amount will make it go over nearby areas.

Anyway, it may look good enough for screen if you resize it to a small image, but if I was to print this it would not be good enough.

Kent, what is chroma by the way?

[Alis]

Even Antonio's toughest models can not beat this moustache!

[Antonio Correia]

Absolutely Alis, absolutely ...

However, one of these days I do have a mustache. But this one is better as very precocious.

[KentDub]

Kent, what is chroma by the way?

Chroma is another word for color. "Chroma Screen" referrs typically to one of four types of screens: Green, Blue, and Red which are designed to reflect as close as perfect a pure signal for the camera (i.e. a Green Screen should not have much if any blue or red in it). This makes masking via chromince (color) much much easier. This is how movies are shot with digital backgrounds. Green is used often because skin is made up mostly of red and blue. If the character or subject is green - then a blue screen is typically preferred - if both green/blue are used, red is the go-to color. The forth type of screen is actually a very special screen. It required that the camera have a light-ring mounted on its lens. The light-ring emits green, blue or red light. The screen, specially designed, refelect the light back near perfectly to its source (so to the camera the screen becomes the color of light shown on it). This gives a darn near perfect signal, without having to deal with consistant lighting or shadow problems. There are distance issues and other factors that make the 4th type of screen not always feasable. That's why it's often used in news/studio broadcast, where traditional chroma screens are used for movies.

As you have noticed, trying to mask via color information is difficult even on a single image. Imagine doing it for 30 images per second! Lots of research, experimentation, etc. has gone into figuring out how to do it. It very much requires quality equipment and thought-out execution.

[Antonio Correia]

Very interesting Ken.

I didn't know about it. In fact I read something about blue background on TV studios but never thought - oh why haven't I ? - it was so interesting.

Thank you for the tip.

Chroma key.

[Alis]

Chroma is another word for color. "Chroma Screen" referrs typically to one of four types of screens: Green, Blue, and Red which are designed to reflect as close as perfect a pure signal for the camera (i.e. a Green Screen should not have much if any blue or red in it). This makes masking via chromince (color) much much easier. This is how movies are shot with digital backgrounds. Green is used often because skin is made up mostly of red and blue. If the character or subject is green - then a blue screen is typically preferred - if both green/blue are used, red is the go-to color. The forth type of screen is actually a very special screen. It required that the camera have a light-ring mounted on its lens. The light-ring emits green, blue or red light. The screen, specially designed, refelect the light back near perfectly to its source (so to the camera the screen becomes the color of light shown on it). This gives a darn near perfect signal, without having to deal with consistant lighting or shadow problems. There are distance issues and other factors that make the 4th type of screen not always feasable. That's why it's often used in news/studio broadcast, where traditional chroma screens are used for movies.

As you have noticed, trying to mask via color information is difficult even on a single image. Imagine doing it for 30 images per second! Lots of research, experimentation, etc. has gone into figuring out how to do it. It very much requires quality equipment and thought-out execution.

Thanks, Kent. Very interesting. Ali