Candle lit by Maygen
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Description
I wanted this image to feel "soft," so I took the shot a little blurred. I see lots of images posted that look soft yet are rather clear. Is there a trick to taking a photo this way or a technique? Is there an effect or something I can do in photoshop perhaps? Advice much appreciated :)
Comments (5)
mechmorph
There are many different approaches to softening a photo. In camera, you can use a variety of soft-focus portrait filters, some of which have a sharp center. You could also try a star filter for a slightly different kind of blur. An old pair of nylons, with a hole in the middle, stretched over the lens might work. Easiest on closeups is to use a macro lens setting focused tightly on your object's plain, which will give you a shallow depth of focus that blurs the background. The standby, of course, is to just fog up the lens by breathing on it, and as the fog dissipates, snap the shot when you get to the right level of blur you want. Works surprisingly well and it costs nothing. In post work, you could try using PhotoShop or a similar program by creating a duplicate layer. Isolate the candle in your top layer (crop out the background) and keep it normal focus. Then go to your background layer and try a Gaussian blur (under filters). This should give you a sharp candle and nice soft background. There are probably other ways to do it, too. Hope these give you some ideas.
Visitor42
The photoshop layering technique mechmorph mentioned gives you a bunch of creative control. One suggestion. The shadow density could be a bit darker. You could try going into levels and adjusting it a bit. Cool pic just the same. Candles trigger a bunch of emotions for me.
reddog
its called Deph of Field and is controled by focus and apiture size and also controls to some extent saturation. EZ tools center sopt or prisim filter or wire screen wire done as Mechmorph said with the pantyhose. he told you good. but for the candel do the Adobi thing. you have more control and more options with Adobi
APFrey
Forget the soft focus. I think this image is terrific. If I had to improve one thing it would be to put the candle on something other than the carpet. The texture of the carpet takes away from the simplicity of the candle. The camera is also slightly tilted. Doesn't affect the picture too much though. This is a great photo...=)
Maygen
So much great advice!!! Thanks all, I'm taking notes! lol :)