Need help getting the radiator out of the picture.

ibcrewin

I think this picture is pretty good but the radiator in the bg is so annoying to me. I tried to clone it out but it looks fake. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1221/1279438754_2bf992e5a2.jpg

zacker

make another layer in Photoshop and clone it out or make a copy of the part above the raditor and paste it in on a new layer and "erase out where its covering the girl, what id try first is this... open th ephot in PS, make a copy, on the copy, id use the selection tool (which ever one you like) and select the radiator and a bit of the area aorund it, sorta square it off (but NOT the kid, leave her intact) then id use the BG eraser to erase with in my selection. then id open the original file and make as big a selection of the area above the radiator then paste that into the layer with the missing selection you made, send the newest layer backwards and drag it to "fill" the open space then flatten..

ibcrewin

zacker wrote:

make another layer in Photoshop and clone it out or make a copy of the part above the raditor and paste it in on a new layer and "erase out where its covering the girl, what id try first is this... open th ephot in PS, make a copy, on the copy, id use the selection tool (which ever one you like) and select the radiator and a bit of the area aorund it, sorta square it off (but NOT the kid, leave her intact) then id use the BG eraser to erase with in my selection. then id open the original file and make as big a selection of the area above the radiator then paste that into the layer with the missing selection you made, send the newest layer backwards and drag it to "fill" the open space then flatten..

I tried doing something like that but the line between the radiator and her arm looked artificial. Wait.. Do you mean make the radiator go to the top? as if it were a wall? Can you show me what you mean? Thanks.

zacker

sorry i wasnt too clear..lol what you need to do AFTER making the and erasing the selection is... select the newly clear part and feather it so when you paste in the new BG, youll get a smoother trasition.. but wait, before you do that, if you still have the one you tried to do, use the blur tool with a small brush and go along the arm... this will also help the transitionbetween the arm and BG.

No, you dont want the radiator in the shot al all.. i just did this same thing this weekend with a pic of my niece, it was taken on a deck and because of the deck boards in the BG, it lookt like she had black lines shooting out of her head on one side, so i did it the way i described and it looked great! i cant post it as its at home and im at work right now.

Richard

Hi there,

Yeah, the clone tool can be a problem when the edges are critical. You can sometimes finesse the problem by going to a very high magnification. But this pic has a much easier solution:



I took the pic and converted from RGB to LAB mode (this isn't absolutely necessary, but I find this sort of thing easier in LAB). I created a new layer and painted over the radiator with a color to match the dark background. I made no attempt to be neat and clean about it, so part of the arm was covered. Then I changed the blending options of the new layer. The A channel gave the best separation between the background and the arm, so I used that and included everything that was less red than the arm, leaving a small range to avoid artifacts. Flatten, convert back to RGB and done. The whole process took about two minutes.

If all this sounds like Martian to you, I highly recommend looking into the LAB colorspace techniques that Dan Margulis has recommended. If you do a search on Dgrin, you will find many threads on the topic. Better still, pick up a copy of his book Photoshop LAB Color. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but it is well worth the effort.

Oh, and BTW, that's a very nice shot. Good work.

Regards,

zacker

very nice richard... and you explained it very well.. not like i did..lol I find it easier to "Do" than to explain how!

Rhuarc

Nice shot, and very impressive results on the edit. I never realized that something like that could be that easy. Makes me want to dig into that book!

Thanks!

ibcrewin

Awesome.. Thanks everyone.. I'm going to try tweaking it tonight!

Richard

zacker wrote:

very nice richard... and you explained it very well.. not like i did..lol I find it easier to "Do" than to explain how!

Thanks, but I'm afraid I screwed up the explanation as well. I said "...excluded..." when I should have said "included." You want to leave the arm alone and overpaint the rest. I also find it easier to do than to explain, and a whole lot faster as well.

I edited my post to correct the error.

Cheers,