Need Advice: Mask then Blur or?

[Markb]

I've been asked to provide some prints of this team photo, with some adjustments that are a bit beyond my capabilities at this point. I hope that someone could point me in the right direction. Specifically, I've been asked to eliminate the folks in the right background.

Cloning is a bit difficult, so I was thinking of blurring the background a la a DOF, to bring the team in front out. This is an uncropped version, and it will still require cropping to an 8X10 and sharpening etc.

Thank you for your advice. Here is the picture.

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[Uncle Frank]

Hi, Mark. Here's my try. After I cropped for 10X8 aspect ratio, including taking some of the tilt out of the bench, the background was pretty easy to deal with. The only intruders left were in the background at frame right. First I isolated that area using the polygonal lasso tool, feathered by a few pixels. Then I cloned in the upper frame of the window. Finally, I used a black paintbrush to remove the remaining unwanted elements.

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Blurring the background would be much more difficult, due to the complex selection process, and the resultant halos. Jmho.

 

[RayGuselli]

Tried a black and white background

Ray

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[Markb]

Uncle Frank, Ray:

Good tips. I'm thinking I may actually combine the two. I'll give it a try and post the results later.

Thank you.