Sand Tumblers

Over the weekend, I was stuck at home due work and on when taking a break I take photos. Outside our home, next door.. there was this pile of sand and some kids where playing there. Here's my favorite shot (edited to blur the background and isolate the kid):


1000D + kit lens @ 55mm, f/5.6, 1/640 secs, ISO 400, Hand-held, No flash


http://lh3.ggpht.com/_7nO3EBpvAsc/TL...0/IMG_0076.JPG


It's really a quick and dirty edit. Here's my complete blog entry: Sand Tumblers and I also showed there the original photo before the edit. [:D]


Thank you for viewing.

Great timing!

Great timing indeed! Those are some agile kids [:|]

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Originally Posted by AnGelo Chiu

Here's my favorite shot

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Definitely the best from the selection [Y]

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Originally Posted by AnGelo Chiu

It's really a quick and dirty edit

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Then go re-do it when you have more time! [:P] This one is a little ghosty [A] But I must say that I like the idea. The background in the original distracts quite a bit and blurring it seems to me like a good idea.


Have fun,


Jan

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Originally Posted by Sheiky

Then go re-do it when you have more time! [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img] This one is a little ghosty

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I find it hard to stop the ghosting when using a gaussian blur as well. Any tips?


Nice shot Angelo - lets hope he made it the whole way round otherwise he's gonna have a sore head.

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Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

Great timing!

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Thanks Daniel!

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Originally Posted by Sheiky

Great timing indeed! Those are some agile kids [img]../../../../../emoticons/emotion-8.gif[/img]


Then go re-do it when you have more time! [img]../../../../../emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img] This one is a little ghosty [img]../../../../../emoticons/emotion-13.gif[/img]
But I must say that I like the idea. The background in the original
distracts quite a bit and blurring it seems to me like a good idea.

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Yes, Jan they are very agile. I remember try doing it on the bed when
I was a kid but I always fall on my back flat. Wasn't able to try it
again ever since. I will definitely go another chance on the edit when I
get the time.

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Originally Posted by btaylor

I find it hard to stop the ghosting when using a gaussian blur as well. Any tips?


Nice shot Angelo - lets hope he made it the whole way round otherwise he's gonna have a sore head.

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Hi Ben, thanks! He did made the full turn. The kid was kinda showing off when he saw me that I was about to take his photo. [:D]


Just like Ben, I'm curious how to you minimize the ghosting effect? Got any tips?

Well, that's hard to say. I'm not a photoshop genius either, so I'm not sure if making this any better is possible, but I just think it should be. What method did you use?


I could give it a try if you want?

Hahaha.. I

Okidoki! I send you a PM

Thanks Jan! Can

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Originally Posted by AnGelo Chiu

Thanks Jan! Can't wait for your take on this. :)
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Well it's still not very good. After finishing I still think I did a sloppy job, but here it is anyway. Oh first of all: I tried it at first with the gaussian blur, but it also didn't work out that well for me[:(] Too much ghosting and no way to get it nice. I tried multiple approaches, but none seemed to work really good.


Pictures are full size if you click them.


Here is my attempt:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbler/tumbler.jpg


As you can see, it's still not flawless. The thing that annoys me the most is the edges. Best visible around the legs. I think with a lot more layers and work, it could be better, but it's not easy. I also added some blur to the foreground, it seemed more "real" to me. That's how a telelens with a wide aperture would have done it I think. It can easily be removed, since it's layered.


My final process picture:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbl...lerprocess.jpg


My steps:


1 - I started making a selection of the sand and I copied it to another layer. Which is called "Sand"


2 - I started selecting the boy. I also copied this one to another layer for later use. The layer is called: "Tumbler"


3 - My selection of the boy was still present and I expanded the selection by 2 pixels. So it doesn't lose any pixels later on in the process. I also copied it to a layer which I named: "Tumbler exp 2p"


4 - I used the selection of layer "Tumbler" and I cut it out of the main layer called: "Back"


5 - "Back" is now the original image, with the boy cut out of it with a tight selection. (Empty area where the boy was)


6 - I applied a blur. To be exact I applied "Lens Blur" . I will post pictures of the settings below.


7 - The background image is now entirely blurred, but the boy-part is still an empty space.


8 - If I wouldputt the "Tumbler" layer on top of it, I'd miss some pixels. That's why I use the "Tumbler exp 2p" to put on top.


9 - Here's where I started the sandblurring. I used the technique I saw inthis youtube video once.


10 - I copied the "Sand" layer and I applied a mask to it. I used gausian blur on this one and then applied a Gradient, which erased the part of the blur that I wanted.


11 - I putt all layers on top of eachother except for the layer "Tumbler" since I only used that one as a selection tool.





I hope this all makes a little bit of sense. The Sandblurring part could have been done easier, but I did it later on, so I used 1 layer more.


Here's the nice part. I had to figure out how the Lens Blur filter worked, so I just started to pull some sliders and push some buttons and see what they did.


Here's the result:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbler/lensblur2.jpg


You can see that I'm losing the edges on this one. I think this also happens with the Gausian blur. Luckily there's some other options on the Lens Blur filter:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbler/lensblur1.jpg


I just started trying out some things and I noticed that with the option: Depth Map I could make it look a lot different. I made the source: Transparent and I used a blur focal distance of 8.


Again don't ask me why, because I was just playing with sliders and options here when I ran into this [:P] I have no clue what the actual theory behind this is and my Technical English also lacks for this part. Anyway whatever it was doing...it worked for me [:P]


I could post the entire PSD file so you can see my layers and see what they do and enable and disable them to see what's going on. But obviously, Angelo has to give me permission to do that [A] Then you can also see what I mean by losing pixels with a tight selection. Enable the layer: "Tumbler" and disable the layer: "Tumbler exp 2p"


I'm far from an expert concerning Photoshop so I don't know if it would even get better if I had put more time and effort into it, but who knows...


If someone has a better way of doing this I would appreciate to learn how to. I liked doing this, thanks Angelo!


Cheers,


Jan

Alright so I was lying in my bed tonight and I thought about this picture. I thought of something that could make it look even better.


Here's my first attempt:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbler/tumbler.jpg


As you can see there's still a very visible edge to the boy. This is due to the expanded selection on the boy. If I didn't use the expanded selection I would have blank pixels.


However this got me thinking. Why couldn't I fill up the blank pixels with the tight boy selection without doing any harm to the rest of the photo. It was easier than I thought [:D]


I just used the original photo as the bottom layer. This way all blank pixels would be filled by the original photo. Here's the result:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumbler/tumbler2.jpg


As you can see there are no more annoying edges. There are still some blank pixels for some reason, but they are barely visible. Perhaps I will redo this one again and try to eliminate all blank pixels. Which one do you prefer?


Jan

Good work Jan! I might have a go at this same process with one of my shots.

I would try using the tight crop, but expanding its actual size to 102% or so. Win win.

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Originally Posted by btaylor

Good work Jan! I might have a go at this same process with one of my shots.
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Thanks Ben, I have done a new one and the process is nowhere near this long [:P] The result is of course a bit different, but the glowing edges are reduces I think, without getting the blank pixels. Which was actually my own fault...had a wrong layer-arrangement I think.

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Originally Posted by jcrowe87

I would try using the tight crop, but expanding its actual size to 102% or so. Win win.

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Interesting...but to be honest I have no idea how I have to do this [:$]


Latest result, which I'm fairly happy with:


http://www.actieinbeeld.nl/tdp/tumblertry2.jpg

That looks great Jan, I would love to learn how to do this. Maybe I

You lost me in the first round of "how to

Hi Jan!


Thank you for the very well detailed how-to

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Originally Posted by AnGelo Chiu

Kudos to Jan!

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Kudos to the Photographer too!


Rich

[:D] Thanks Rich!

Thanks a lot for the nice responses everyone [:D]

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Originally Posted by Richard Lane

I would love to learn how to do this. Maybe I'll have some time this winter.
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It's quite easy. Photoshop is actually an easy program. It is done by steps, and mostly by a lot fo steps which makes it hard to use [:P] But the individual changes are quite simple.


My latest edit seems to be in favor and it's actually a lot simpler than I had imagined. So everyone ignore the big 10+ step thing on how to do it [;)]

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Originally Posted by ddt0725

You lost me in the first round of "how to's"! I thought the first photo fix was great but this last one is fantastic!


One of these days, I'll learn how to do some of this ...maybe it's another one to add to my winter projects list!

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Well since my latest edit was done quite more simplistic than the first, it's not hard to learn how to. And actually I search a lot on Youtube as well [;)] You can buy a book and read about the million things Photoshop can offer you and so learn 999.999 things too much. Or you could quickly learn the basics/menu etc... and look for indivdual and specific stuff on Youtube or a book. It's better not to try photoshopping without an idea of what you want to achieve. If you have some sort of idea in your head, photoshopping isn't too hard. At least....it shouldn't always be [;)]

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Originally Posted by AnGelo Chiu

Maybe the blank pixels on the last two edits will not be noticeable if the photo is resized to 800x600 or something not relatively large.


Great work Jan. Now I gotta get some time to try out your how-to. I'm sure many of us in here learned something from you. I'm sure I learned a lot.

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I agree with you on the blank pixels. They're probably invisible at smaller scale. It might work for this one, but there might be a picture in the future where you'd need the full potential. So always strive for perfection [;)]


I will post both processes in a new post to keep it clear. Hope I could learn you guys some things. Thanks for letting me do this! [Y]

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Originally Posted by Richard Lane

Kudos to the Photographer too!

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BIG KUDOS!!! [Y]

Alright so here are the Photoshop PSD files of both processes. They are between 30 and 35MB per file. Good luck and if there are any questions, don't hestitate to ask! Than I can look on Youtube and figure out the answers [;)] Click on the links for a download, if it's not working. Let me know.


PSD of the first Process


PSD of the second Process


Good luck! And if you can come up with something better....show us! [:D]

Thank you Jan!


Yes, if any of you would like to try, just PM me and I can send you the file. On second thought, maybe we can play around Jan