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A6 - Applying Effects to Background

This assignment introduces a simple technique that you can use, alongside some of the other skills you have worked on in this unit, to produce some interesting effects. Specifically, we'll look at how we can apply colour effects and filters to just the background of an image, leaving the foreground unchanged (or modified in a different way).

The Strategy

  1. Open an image you want to work with in your favourite photo editor.
  2. Duplicate the layer, so you have two layers of the same image.
  3. Make the lower layer invisible.
  4. Remove the background from the upper layer, so only your object of interest is left. Remember to add an alpha channel if necessary so that deleted pixels will become transparent as opposed to white.
  5. Make the lower layer visible again.

Now, you can apply any effects you'd like to the lower layer, and they will only appear to effect the background since there is an unchanged copy of your original foreground on top.

If you want to apply effects to just your foreground, you can apply them to your upper layer.

Example

Here I decreased the saturation of the background then applied a blur.

Your Task

Try this strategy out on two images.

If you do more than two, it can be considered an extension.