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Horse_Feria
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Kalistar



Registered: October 2008
Posts: 15
users gallery
I took this shot of the horse and rider. Although the horse and rider look quite good the background is mucky. Using photoshop, I've selected and blurred the background. Since I'm fairluy new to this sort of thing I'm not sure if it works. Maybe I've over done it.
· Date: Sun November 8, 2009 · Views: 1624 · Filesize: 148.9kb, 921.1kb · Dimensions: 1500 x 1154 ·
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Keywords: Horse_Feria
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Kev

Registered: February 2008
Posts: 2,722
Mon November 9, 2009 4:12am

I think this is pretty good...the colours are nice, which lens did you use...the 105mm 2.8 VR? I would have used a faster Shutter speed tho 1/320s is a bit slow for this type of shot.


It's obviously a bright sunny day...and you've still managed to keep the exposure well balanced overall.


I think I would have chosen f/4, which would have blurred the background a tad more too and given you extra speed.


Good shot tho...
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honez

Registered: August 2008
Posts: 695
Mon November 9, 2009 6:10am

I can definitely make out where the blur starts/ends. You should really be feathering the edges and/or using a gradient to go from no blur to lots.
For this kind of shot, I'd mask the horse/rider on their own without any blur. Mask the ground and blur that using a gradient, starting with no blur where the horse is standing, increasing gaussian blur the further back you go, up to the point of the wall. The wall would then be another mask that would have a straight gaussian blur (greater than the max of the gradient).
So the photo would really consist of three elements -- the horse/rider, the floor gradually getting further away and more blurred, then the wall that would be fairly evenly blurred the most.
The trick is getting the masks right so they don't look like cutouts.
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Kev

Registered: February 2008
Posts: 2,722
Mon November 9, 2009 6:42am

Yeah, funny that...I never noticed the 'join' of the gaussian blur...but as soon as you mentioned it Honez...it stuck out. Definitely use a few gradients...which you can do extremely easy using NX2 (as you are a Nikon NEF shooter)...
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Kalistar

Registered: October 2008
Posts: 15
Mon November 9, 2009 12:54pm

Thanks for the critique Kev and Honez.


I used the Nikkor 18 - 200mm VR zoom.


I take your point about the edges of the blurred area. As I said I'm fairly new to advanced editing but I'll definately try the graduated blurring of the ground. As you've explained it makes sense.
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