Please help me clean up this image

richtersl

I need some help/advice on how to clean up the following image. As I snapped the shutter, one of the other kids in the room stood up and I caught part of her head in the frame. Kids will be kids, right? :dunno

:cry The clone tool really isn't cutting it. This was the photo I originally wanted to enter into DSS #16 but was not happy with the clone job I did.




Go easy on me -- I only know enough Photoshop to be dangerous. :rofl

angevin1

Hey Linda, Found your post just perusing. How about a little selective Gaussian blur?

Most probably taking more than the four minutes I spent would result in a better photo~

cheers, tom

Jzazzi

To rebuild the hair is well beyond my skill, and it sounds like I'm not much more skilled than you are. Using blur or something to the effect of a vignette I think is your best bet. Not sure how to "save" that one other than turning it into something else that doesn't really need that space to be cleared.

It does offer a bit of framing but it looks odd just having a blurb in only one corner. Maybe adding a few more blobs or blurred objects in the foreground would help offset it or make it look intentional.

Good luck.

-Justin

Vanquiz

Linda, your cloning job on the other thread is already great, well beyond my ability, if you still not happy with it, maybe add gaussian blur around, so the difference between the hair and the cloned hair is not noticeable ...

Or like the other said, maybe do some vignetting to cover it up ...

I play with your photo a bit, pardon me, but I think I "cut" her hair too much, ...

aj986s

With your permission, I've done some quick cloning to replicate hair in the lower left corner. Not great, but could be better with more effort/time/patience.

Llywellyn

My 5-minute attempt. Hair is tough!

Jzazzi

How you managed to do that I have no idea. Leaps and bounds beyond my skill, that's for certain.

Bravo!

-J

Llywellyn

Honestly, it's a trick I learned from the "You Suck at Photoshop" videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeZ0s8DXZ0

richtersl

OMG! I thought this thread was all but forgotten!

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Kerry, that was a super cloning job. :jawdrop

I tried the patch tool, copying and pasting another section of hair into place and then cropping, but could not quite nail it. I found another method here on DGrin for removing unwanted elements through masking layers in LAB mode but it was a bit over my head.

kd2

Or maybe just a tight crop?


Sorry--having a bit of a problem with the pic. See next post. I'll get the hang of this eventually.

kd2

Trying again. Here's my thought of doing a close crop.

richtersl

Thanks, Kathleen! That crop looks good.

I was so hung up on the hair I did do enough with cropping. Oh well, lesson learned.

Llywellyn

With Linda's permission to use her image, I thought it might be useful to post a quick "how to" in case anyone's interested. Mind you, this was a quick hack job, but with some extra loving care, it could work well.

Instead of trying to clone at the outset because the hair is so detailed, I started by making a rough selection of hair to copy to a new layer. I made one big selection, pressed cmd + J to copy that selection to its own layer, then moved it to cover the blurry corner:

1. Selection


2. Cmd + J to copy to new layer and move


To cover the rest of the blurry corner, I made another selection of hair to copy based on the direction of hair visible on the left and its slightly darker color.

3. Selection


4. Cmd + J to copy selection to new layer, then move (I placed this selection behind the first to make blending easier and look a bit more natural)


I then masked both new layers to blend away the "cut out" edges.

5. The result after masking, and a close-up of the layers palette to show the masks applied


I was bothered by the dark "crease" that remained on the left and the fact that the patch on the right looked too dark as well for being on the lit side of her face. I added two curves adjustments layers--one for each patch of hair--set the blending mode to "Screen," inverted the mask, then painted back in with white using a low-opacity brush. (I could have done this on just one layer, but I was working quickly and it didn't occur to me at the time. ) I also adjusted the opacity of the curves layers so the color looked more natural.

6. Lightness adjusted and close-up of the layers palette to show masks applied


The bluriness bugged me a little, so my final step was doing "the move"--shift + alt + cmd + e--to merge visible onto a new layer for cloning and final clean-up. (I usually just do this on a blank layer with the cloning stamp set to sample all layers, but the masks were futzing with that method.) I used a large stamp with 0% hardness and 100% opacity to cover up the blurry areas with a couple clicks.

7. Final image and close-up of final layers palette


Hope that all made sense.

pathfinder

Very nice job with an even better explanation, Kerry.

I am quite impressed with how well this worked out, keeping the lit and shaded tonalities in the hair straight. Good job!

I think this should be written up in a journal format and added to DGRIN's library of tutes! Good on ya!

richtersl

Kerry, thanks! This was very helpful!!

angevin1

pathfinder wrote:

..... Good job!

I think this should be written up in a journal format and added to DGRIN's library of tutes! Good on ya!

ivar

Llywellyn wrote:

Hope that all made sense.

It did, a lot so much that I've asked Kerry and Linda if it would be okay to make a tutorial out of this.
You can find it under Photo Manipulation, on the tutorials page