Teach a Man to Fish (Please...)

[bdiggle]

So, I've been playing in/around PS for awhile and know just enough to be sorta dangerous but this photo edit has proven tricky (for me).

Not looking to have anyone do it "for me" - I'd rather get some ideas from you vets and work on making this happen myself - so I'm not asking for fish, just some help in learning how to.

I was recently in Seattle and did the tourist thing at the top of the Space Needle but, right as the picture snapped, the kids at the lower left jumped in and "CHEEZED" for the pic. Yay! =/



Several things are making this much harder than any image edit/replacement I've done.

• The kids don't "break" cleanly (they spill all over that bottom left)
• The wall I'm against is metallic and is carrying reflections and also reflecting the ambient light.
• The wall bends in the panoramic image (although I imagine that's the least challenging bit to get right).

I've tried the tricks I'm most familiar with and just can't get it right.

TIA for any tips/tricks/suggestions - and I promise to work through them until I get it right!

Cheers.

 

[IamSam]

Hello and welcome to PSG.

OK....even though I know it but just to clarify since you don't actually say it, your wanting advice on how to remove the kidlets from the photo?

 

[Rich54]

This is one of my favorite things in Photoshop: rendering what ought to be the background when you remove something from the foreground. My preferred approach is to carefully reconstruct the background one small section at a time using the Pen Tool.

In the first illustration, I created five paths---and saved them---using the Pen tool. (I colored them with completely inappropriate colors just for illustration so that you can clearly see the five different areas I defined). Then I made a selection of one path at a time and tried to re-create the colors, gradients, highlights and shadows of the railing and the metallic wall. Use lots of layers.

In the second illustration, I made a very rough (15 minute) attempt to practice what I preach. The horizontal railing wasn't too hard. I used a combination of the brush tool, clone stamp, and strokes. Creating these paths and making selections from them allows you to work in a very precise, tightly defined way without your work bleeding over into unwanted areas. For the metallic wall, I made a copy of a clean area of the wall from the right half of the photo and moved it over to cover up the kids. I used Edit>Transform>Skew to get the perspective of the diagonal beads to match the perspective of the left-hand portion of the image. There is still a small sliver of child leaking out from behind the wall, but I didn't bother dealing with that right now. As you rightly say, the metallic wall is reflecting ambient light, but the casual observer won't really know what the ambient reflections are "supposed to be", so you can fake it with a panel from elsewhere in the photo.

To me, the most difficult part of this reconstruction is where the kid in the dark blue shirt is holding on to some sort of bracket. I can't quite tell what that is supposed to be, so once we remove the kid I'm not sure what to draw there. I supposed it could be ignored altogether and just "clone-stamp" right over it. Anyway... good luck.

 

[IamSam]

Here's what I would do.........

Make a selection of this area....


Move it over here. Then use Free Transform to make it fit.


Add a layer mask to the duplicated layer then use the Brush Tool to blend it in.


Then use the Clone stamp Tool and the Brush Tool to clean up what's left over.

 

[agentmoeller]

ri-DONK-ulous!

Mad skillz!

 

[Mitchell]

Great job Sam! That looks awesome

 

[bdiggle]

Thanks everyone - but WOW IamSam - that was SO SO SO HELPFUL!

I'm going to work on recreating your steps myself today - mind if I pop back here later with any questions about what you did (and where I'm falling short on it)...?

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Thanks SO MUCH Sam! As I said, I've been dabbling in PS for years (and years) but always hobbyist and never particularly serious about getting better. I'd like to improve though and, while mine isn't as good as yours, it's MILES better than the best I produced in a couple days of trying on my own. Heck, I've used layer masks for YEARS but didn't know simply painting in black allowed you to adjust a layer mask (had to google that one).

Looking forward to being a part of this community.

Thanks gang.
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