Some focus exclusion and image enhancing...
 

This is a little photoshopping I did for my site for my radio show... it's now the main page picture...

In case you're wondering why it looks like we're blocking our faces, this is actually done on purpose. Every picture on the website has our faces blocked in some way- not because we don't want to be identified, but because we thought it would be funny that in every shot, something has managed to ruin your view of our face. Stroll around the pictures section for a bit to see more of what I mean.

Anyway, here's the original:

http://www.whatwillyoubring.com/pict...le_tobecut.jpg

By focus exclusion, I mean more like pushing something in the foreground even further at you by defocussing everything in the background.

http://www.whatwillyoubring.com/pict..._fuzz_cigs.jpg

By "image enhancing", I mean enhancing the images of myself and my friend Jay by both removing the cigarettes (which I don't smoke at all, and he only smokes one or two when he's drinking, and not at all apart from that), and also putting my beer back in front of me. For other reasons, prior to taking the photo, my beer ended up over by him. Now it's by me again.

http://www.whatwillyoubring.com/pict...uzz_nocigs.jpg

Ever think of doing a side line of 'Find the differences in these photos'?
Nice job.:thumbsup:

Nice image manipulation. The fix on the reflection on his arm is prety good, and it looks like you used the napkin to easily cover up the the reflection on the table where the bottle was. Pretty cool! Looking at the first and last pictures, there is a huge difference in what your eyes are drawn to.

That would be a neat idea to have here. :surprised:

Actually that wasn't an issue (the solo napkin)... I moved it so that I could keep the reflection of the bottle with the napkin around it... it kinda got in the way... so really I just swapped the two so I could keep the reflections... covering some of the left bottle's small reflection was incidental, not purposeful. It just looks nice there, I thought.

Thanks for the compliments :)

It looks like a real photo. You did the edit extremely well. But the defocus seems too much. I don't know why I think this, but it looks a bit blue screen. Am I the only person thinking this?

the overall looks really well done. the only problem is that your DOF (blur) is too extreme in the foreground. close to your chair, it should be still crisp enough and then fade. even the chair is blurred so much that i can't even tell it's a chair.

and as far as the beers go, if you want to make it look cooler, try removing the napkin beer bottle and take the one without the napkin to put in place. that way it looks like the dude is holding 1 beer and the other dude has his beer infront of him. unlike now, where i guy isn't drinking and the other has 2 beers. haha.

I see what you're saying, and I'd agree if I was trying to make it look like a lens effect of focus, but I was just defocusing everything but what I wanted to stand out. Good call, though.

oh allright. then it's cool. :thumbsup: