What’s wrong with this picture?

Iphotographed this 5-year old little girl at the Jember Fashion Carnaval in Jember, Indonesia, and I like everything about this picture except for the white out of focus element in the upper right corner. Backgrounds are just as important as subjects in making an image work. No matter how great a subject is, if one or more things in the background draw your eye away from where it should be -- directed to the subject -- then it’s distracting. While dark elements can be very distracting, usually it’s the light elements that are the most bothersome.

In looking at this portrait, notice that your eye is constantly drawn to the upper right corner. That white spot pulls your attention to it almost automatically. That’s not how a successful picture is supposed to work.

In this particular shot, it was very easy to use the clone tool and eliminate the distracting element. In many photographs, though, repairing the background requires a certain amount of finesse in Photoshop. That’s one reason I feel it’s so important to master the program. There are numerous images in your files that could be vastly improved simply by replacing or correcting the background.

For all of us, too many photographic situations occur in which we can’t control the background. How many times have you said to yourself or to your photo buddies that a particular picture would have been so good if only the background were different -- non-distracting, more complimentary, less blown out, less busy, etc.? I have those same issues. That’s why I spend a lot of time in Photoshop making pictures perfect. §