Reflection on Ring

[Blessings Captured]

I’m editing the pictures from the wedding I just shot. I’m having difficulty with one shot. The groom’s ring was shiny silver-and very reflective. Do you think the reflection is distracting? How could I remove it in post? How could I avoid it in the future?

Thanks!

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[Frazer Family]

Personally, I don’t find the reflection distracting; to the contrary! Wedding rings (like any jewellery) are designed to create reflections! If there were none, the ring would look like it were made of plastic.

On the flip side, though, it is distracting that you can distinguish a photographer in the far left ring (if you look closely.) I’ve often seen pictures of rings taken at a very slightly higher angle, and often off-set, sometimes with one sitting halfway on the other, etc… Maybe it’s to avoid that problem.

I tried (rather fast) cloning (using a half-transparent brush) from either side of the photographer, after partially blurring it out (again, half-transparent brush). Then to avoid a ‘out of focus’ feel, I used a sharpening brush the same way. It’s called convolve in Gimp; here’s an explanation of what it does. There must be a very similar tool(s) in Photoshop. So now you can see a sharp-looking texture (though not very sharp at that resolution), but no photographer.

I don’t like my results, but I’m working rather fast and on a shrunk version. Still, I believe the method has potential.

Hoping this helps,
William

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[Blessings Captured]

Thank you, that’s a good point about reflections! Also, an excellent method to remove the photographer. I’ll have to play around with photographing at a higher angle.

[James Staddon]

I see what you mean by the distractions in the reflections. I wouldn’t remove all reflections, but like @frazer-family was say, it would look better editing out the splotch of black that is the photographer. I did this edit in PS, using a light gray color layer masked so it would cover only the photographer, and then cloned around to make the rest of the ring look less splotched looking. If you wanted to, you could literally redo the entire ring with a gradient, but that would probably look a bit fake unless it was done perfectly.

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[Blessings Captured]

Thank you @jamesStaddon! That was a good idea to use a gray layer.

[Frazer Family]

Hey @jamesstaddon,
I’m curious. What is a gray layer, and how do you use one?

I like the results, that’s for sure.

[James Staddon]

What I meant by a “gray layer” was a solid color of gray that covered the entire photo….but I masked out only the places where I wanted it to be visibile, ie. certain portions of the ring.

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