Requesting help cleaning up a background

[Sparky91]

Hi folks, I'm trying to figure out a way to clean up the ceiling area of a series of family shots, but cant find any way to do it without basically painting over the entire ceiling, and was wondering if anyone had any better ways of doing it?

These shots are from a wedding that my friend volunteered to shoot along with her "trusty sidekick" here, everything was very last minute and an absolute shambles, this was the only spot we could get for group shots. I convinced her to try shooting upwards to avoid cluttering the background with tables and chairs, but missed the part where she told the bride "Don't worry, he'll fix that roof in photoshop for you," so here we are...

Any suggestions would be most appreciated folks!

 

[ibclare]

Luckily, the area immediately above their heads is pretty clean. This shot needs to be cropped regardless. Why not concentrate on that, bottom, top, and sides, then you can keep the proportions the same.

If you have more with the same problem, there are multiple ways to address it. What we suggest will depend greatly on your level of experience in PS. Clone stamp is the first thing that comes to mind, but, fairly time intensive. You could cut down on that by doing a quick cloning, then separate out the background through selection, feather the edges, and apply a blur so that the lines of the ceiling aren't so visible. Surely you can't wish to keep that texture . . .

 

[ibclare]

For instance. I did a quick cloning -- kind of sloppy on the top and the right. Then I selected the ceiling, feathered it at 8 pixels (copied your full-size enlargement) used a guassian blur of 4, and cropped the image.

 

[Sparky91]

This one was just an example straight from the camera to show the problem, a lot of the shots are from further back and put the mess right above the subjects' heads.
I have a small amount of experience with PS, I had already tried clone stamping but couldn't figure out how to fix the mess made by the patterned roof, and with around 25 to do it was seeming ludicrously time-consuming. I'll try it that way though if I can follow it, thanks

 

[Paul]

:mrgreen:

 

[Sparky91]

Haha, if I thought I could get away with it this would be perfect

 

[MikeMc]

You can , after all the camera doesn't lie.......

 

[iDad]

i think she refers to the Bling... That is one hell of an expensive looking backdrop lol now on the other hand drapes really come in handy for shots like that:mrgreen:

 

[ibclare]

If all your shots are that messed up, they will take a bit of time and effort to fix, no matter what method you use. I hope that this is your wedding present! Otherwise, charge $25 an hour! JK I think. You'll probably lose your following if you do, but . . . :mrgreen:

 

[iDad]

Are you talking to me? I would not charge a dime for that work, if you are. A 3 minute extraction on a low res image is just horse play

 

[MikeMc]

no lies.....

 

[iDad]

Okay, because a laugh is good!

 

[Hoogle]

View attachment 39337

no lies.....

Omg fast scrolling on this pic lesson learnt it is like an optical illusion