Removing an annoying branch with the Brush Tool

[IamSam]

I'm very curious the steps you took using the brush tool....

Sorry, It's been a long day and I'm just now finding the time to post this.

I usually start off by identifying the boundaries I will need in order to remove the offending branch.
This is the basic zone I need to make exact selections. Outside this zone can be soft transitions.


Then I make a selection of the areas I want to preserve. You can use any selection process you're most comfortable with.
For me, on a layer mask, I used a mix of alpha channel, Brush and Pen Tool. I then used Select and Mask to refine the selection.


Reversed the selection.
Create a new layer.
Then I just use the Brush Tool with a large and very soft (0% Hardness) brush with it's Flow set to 2%
Then it's just a matter of sampling nearby colors and painting out the annoying branch.






After the Brush Tool work is done, turn off the selection.
Merge the paint layer down or create a new stamp visible layer.
Then zoom in fairly close and clean up any sharp edges with the Blur Tool set to 12%


Note: This was a totally new edit I did just for this demo, so it was done pretty fast! Don't look too close!

 

[Rich54]

For this kind of situation, another technique I like is to set the Color Dynamics in the brush tool to toggle between your foreground and background colors to create a cloud-like effect. Set the Foreground/Background jitter to 100% and also activate the brush scattering. This allows you to quickly lay down a base layer that's halfway to the end result. Then you can then refine it by painting new colors over that, sampled from the surrounding areas.

 

[Korupt]

So that's what you meant in that other thread. I can see this works very well with a background out of focus such as this. Nice.

 

[JeffK]

Thanks @IamSam and @Rich54! I wasn't happy with how the cloning tool was working with this and AI was useless. I've never tried this painting technique before and I'll certainly give it a shot. Every day's a school day with Photoshop!

 

[JeffK]

I am absolutely loving this painting technique! I don't use a pen so I usually shy away from this tool but the mouse gave me some control especially with the opacity pulled all the way down.

@Rich54 - can you please give me a bit more of an explanation to how foreground/background jitter affects the image? Am I choosing one foreground and one background color from the image?

Here's where I'm at on my first pass....

 

[Rich54]

@Rich54 - can you please give me a bit more of an explanation to how foreground/background jitter affects the image? Am I choosing one foreground and one background color from the image?

This technique can quickly give you three shades:

• Make a rough selection of the area you want to cover and fill it with an "average" green shade from this image.
• Next, set you foreground color to one of the darker shades from the image and your background color to one of the lighter shades.
• Use a large, soft brush and set the scatter and the 100% foreground/background jitter as I described above.
• Paint these new colors over your average green area. The scatter and jitter will create a blurry, cloud-like effect from the colors you have selected.
• Optionally, give the entire thing a Gaussian blur.

As I mentioned, this is not necessarily the finished product. But it's one way of quickly laying down a large area of unfocused colors, like the image in this thread.

 

[JeffK]

Thanks for the details, Rich. Much appreciated !