Great capture! This one really shows off the energy. I like how the ball is flying away from the point of launch as well as the mousetrap moving away due to it's own inertia. Well worth the effort it took to make this shot!
Adjust the levels and raise the black point until the cloth turns mostly black, about the middle of the first peak. Black out the background as much as you can with the paintbrush. Pretty much just background removal like on "Wheee", only without the advantage of being able to select by color.
Carefully clean up the little bit of swoosh that ended up past the ball. Switch to the clone tool, select clone point in the swoosh, and clone out the shadow that the flash created on the backdrop behind the ball. Also, clone out the larger artifacts that appear within the swoosh. Bonus points: Use the smudge or blur tool to even out the color of the ball (below the smiley face, of course).
Let me know how that goes, if you want to try it.
Did I mention that I love this photo? Good work so far, but I'd just like to see it pushed as far its potential.
Patrick O'Leary
Philip Potts
30-Jul-2004 11:02
Thanks for the comment Patrick. I ran the photo through Noiseware to get rid of some of the artifacts but I have no idea how to do the other things you mentioned.
Thanks, Philip
Much better (IMHO)! Nitpick time: anything you can do about the noise/dust apparent on the cloth? A black adjustment layer with an appropriate mask and maybe some transparency (so it doesn't look too flat) might work, but there's probably about 1.37 million other approaches.
