darken background of flower images

[deeinoz]

Hi
how can i darken the back ground of flower images. I don't seam to have a stready hand when using the blur brush??? re ther other methods, or methods when actually taking the photo.
Many thanks
Denise

[steve.ledger]

Depending on your camera, you can use a flash with a faster shutter speed and wider (open) aperture to give a shallow depth of field (short focal point) that gives you a naturally blurred (out of focus) background (bokeh)

[steve.ledger]

I no longer use PSP so it's not installed anymore, but rather than the blur brush you could slice out from a copy of the image the flowers/s using the lasso tool or point-to-point selection (marching ants) then place it on another layer. The original photo can be darkened and blurred while the flower on the new layer is unaffected.
The layers then merged for export.

I did this quickly in Xara Xtreme but it's the same idea.
Original on the left.

[craftylady]

You might want to try using the "depth of field" under "adjustments" in Corel (I use PSPX2). Another way you could darken the background is to copy and paste your image as a new layer, darken the second layer again using adjustments (color balance or curves are good choices to use) and then erase only the flower part on the second layer so the bright color of it on the first layer shows through. Then merge it all together. Hope this helps.

[ontos]

Nicely done sledger, I really like that