Hands

[Grumpy John]

This sculpture took my interest but the background is not very flattering so I had a go at trying to improve it. With my limited PS skills I isolated the main subject using the Magnetic Lasso tool and then applied a Field Blur and some Bokeh to the background. I also used the Clone Stamp tool to eliminate the white concrete in the lower R/H area.
This is a pretty crude fix so if anyone has some suggestions to improve on my edit please feel free to download the original and have a play with it.

Original image.


Edit

[HansE]

It did improve it a lot. They look like the hands of a Gorilla. Thought of a comletely new back ground?

[Grumpy John]

Just out of interest, what method did you use to isolate the sculpture?

[HansE]

I used the green channel after applying using overlay drew just inside the mask with polly lasso inverted selection and painted around edge with Burn and dodge the shadows and highlights. haven't perfected it yet but getting better at it.

[Grumpy John]

Sorry Hans I'm a tad slow could you repeat that in step by step mode. The how to idiot instruction books were designed for people like me

[Isac]

You've done OK with the cut out. It's much easier to use the Quick Selection tool and make a mask on a layer copy. You can the paint with Black (hide) or White (reveal) on the mask to fine tune the edges of the cut out. Using a tablet makes this a quick and easy task. I personally believe a tablet is an essential tool when editing in Photoshop. Once you have the mask, you can drop in other backgrounds of your choice, as below.
#1 - Masked Layer.

#2 - Lens Blurred Background showing the Depth of Field.

#3 - Other backgrounds can be easily dropped in.

[HansE]

Make a new layer via copy.
Apply image - image tab Use overlay mode to blend.
Select channels in the layers box and pick a channel that has the best contrast I picked the green channel.
You can go into the curves adjustment in Image ajustments tab here and increase the contrast even more by moving the top point to the left and the bottom black point to the right. I finished up with picking 34 and 200
Now draw a polygonal lasso iside the sculpture fairly close to edge untill you have a selection.
Use a big plack brush fill the selection with black.
Now invert the selection and do the tricky bit.
Start by using the same big brush but with 100% white and paint on the outside of the mask making sure you dont remove any of the bits you wish to be part of the selection.
Now select the burn tool I selected a brush to go with it of 20 pixels 80% hardness opacity 30% shadows paint on the parts of the statue that you need to darken being carefull not to darken the bits you don't want to much.
Don't try and do it all at once. Instead change to dodge tool same size brush this time select highlights.and concentrate on the bits you don't want and try and leave the other. You will find it works easily where you have a good differentuation in contrast. When you approach getting close you can make the layer transparent so you can see how well you have done and tidy up with a small brush with black and white. I then deleted the selection and used the magic wand to make a new one and saved it. Deleted the working layer as I have the selection loaded.
I saw a demo of this where they got individual hairs on a model using this technique. There are probably short cuts or better ways but you learn a bit doing this.

[Grumpy John]

Thanks very much Hans.

[Grumpy John]

First try at some creative editing on the hands.

[HansE]

It's a whole new ballgame. A lot of character displayed in a a more powerful image. The sculptor would probably enjoy a copy of this picture.