Photos » children » Children at play

Taken on: 2007-02-09 14:37:40
Tags: canon-20d, children, cork, fermoy, gimp, gimp-tutorials, ireland, irishblogs, look-up, photos, sigma-10-20, signs, sky, urban, warning-sign
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A sign in Fermoy, Co. Cork warns motorists to watch out for kids playing on the road.

I've seen so many people speed through built up areas these signs mean absolutely nothing to them.


Technique:
1. Original image was flat and plain. Background sky was monotonous so I ran it through auto-levels which brought out the colours.

2. Then I duplicated that layer and blurred it using Gaussian Blur with a radius of 25px (original image is 3504px wide). By adding a layer mask I was able to rub out some of the blurred layer to expose the sharp original below. Opacity was set to 41% to reduce the blur effect.

3. Finally an overlay layer was added and circular gradients drawn on with a low opacity. This darkens the sky and sign slightly in patches.


All manipulation done in the GIMP but will work just as well in Photoshop or other application.

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Comments:
Brendan Lyon
Nice. Interesting perspective. I like the manipulation detail too.
Donncha @ InPhotos.org
Dawson Larst - thanks! :)
royskeane
Appreciate you sharing the details, very helpful. Do you use a tablet/pen?

Great end result by the way.
Donncha @ InPhotos.org
royskeane - thanks! I do have a tablet and pen, but when I get it working in this version of Ubuntu my mouse stops working! I'm left with using the pen as a pointing device without the benefit of a pressure sensitive tip :(
Very disappointing because it worked fine before. I'll fix it eventually, I hope!
{tribal} photography
Great photo. How did you make the sky so vibrant?
Donncha @ InPhotos.org
I think I just used an overlay layer with a black to transparent gradient. It does a fairly neat job of replicating a polarizer! :)