Photoshop - HowTo edit person out of an image

[bence8810]

Hello,

This might not be a very popular one yet I'd still like to ask.

Often times I find myself looking at a photo of mine and think - dang I wish I waited longer so that person would get out of my frame.
However, it isn't always possible and I'd like to learn a way to remove things in PS.

I can do power lines if the background is solid etc, so basically I am a rookie. I can't do anything else complex.

See my attached shot, this I took 2 weeks ago in HK. I really like it, the girl is a university student reading the news of the protest right on the closed off Mong Kok intersection (Nathan road) that is always full of cars etc.

You'll immediately see a person right behind her (above her head), totally ruining the picture (for me that is). I remember this shot and I don't remember seeing that person which means I wasn't careful enough. However, I'd still like to use this photo if possible to edit the character out.

I have Photoshop and can do some basic stuff but not much. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ben

FULL SIZE HERE

 

[YYV_146]

Seems like there are enough pixels to get the deal done. You'll need some patches from the building behind and the construction in front. Use a 2 pixel edge to lift the person from the hair. Should be doable.

Do a blur edge on all of the patches, then try to use them to cover the person so that the background looks reasonably normal. Then merge all the layers and do another blur to cover up the artifacts.

Anyway, that's how I'd do it. It's usually a coin toss between patching and drawing the whole thing out on my Wacom.

 

[nongfuspring]

The clone tool.

 

[gshybrid]

did this in about 2 minutes using just the clone tool... there are plenty of tutorials online.

 

[bence8810]

Wow, thanks! 2 minutes...

Lots to learn.
Just took delivery of my brand new Wacom tablet, hope it'll help with precision. I am rather clumsy...

Thanks all, will give the clone tool a try tonight.
Ben

 

[peterm1]

As an aside, Stalin's apparatchiks had this down to a fine art in the days before Photoshop. 🙁

Those who fell into his disfavour were not only killed they also disappeared from official images to become "non persons". What a charmer but then again this was common practice in the "worker's paradise" so he was only following precedent set by others including Lenin who did this with his enemies.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nonperson.jpg

On a more serious note. Sometimes it is very hard to get rid of someone or something totally by cloning them out. If there is a lot of detail in the background getting rid of them without leaving obvious artifacts can be hell.

An alternative I have used is to blur the background more (e.g. to make it look as if I used a wider aperture than I actually did) to throw the main subject into relief much as you would if you did use a faster lens at a more full aperture. This technique is an easier skill to master but is still difficult to describe......

There are a variety of ways to do this in PS. A relatively easy way is to first duplicate the main layer. Then use the blur tool to blur one of the layers till you are happy with the amount of blur - blurring the background layer works best.

Then select the new (sharp) layer and using a layer mask, selectively erase the parts of that layer so the (blurred) background layer shows through in the areas where you want it blurry. The foreground and the main subject need to be sharp for it to look natural. The background needs to be blurred. You can do this more rapidly by using a gradient mask to make the gradual front to back blur combined with some manual masking to erase the area over the main subject. Its harder to describe than to do. You will find tutorials on the internet.

Alternatively if you have the Nik Color Efex Pro plug in, use their blur tool combined with the selective tool that comes with all Nik products. This is very very quick and easy to do because it allows you to very quickly select which parts of the image to apply any effect to and which ones to leave untouched - or partially affected. No layers and other masking techniques are needed just the Nik tools.

For example I think I probably used this technique to heighten the background blur (and vignette) in this image even though there was already a fair bit of good bokeh from the lens I used. It was a matter of fine tuning.

Concentration x2 by yoyomaoz, on Flickr

 

[mfogiel]

You can ask the historians, particularly the Soviet ones - they got very smart at this job.

http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Famous_Doctored_Photos_of_Dictators

 

[semordnilap]

You can ask the historians, particularly the Soviet ones - they got very smart at this job.

http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Famous_Doctored_Photos_of_Dictators

That's the same thing I thought of when I read the thread title... Here is the master class.

http://myweb.lmu.edu/rrolfs/commissar01b.html

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/k/king-commissar.html

http://www.amazon.com/The-Commissar-Vanishes-Falsification-Photographs/dp/0805052941

 

[bence8810]

Thank you all for the great tips, have managed to use the Clone tool and replicated what is shown above in the 3rd response to my query, amazed that I didn't know how this could be done so simply.

I'll keep blur in mind for times when I may not be able to clone.

About the Non-person stuff, I am obviously a little too young although that's not what my wife says...

I did live through the communism as I hail from good old Hungary, but as I only was 9 when things turned for the better (or as some say - worse) it didn't leave me with too many bad memories. As my folks would say, Hungary wasn't as bad as some of the other countries even during the dark days.

From the post above, Stalin did indeed seems to have employed the right people in his darkrooms...

Ben

 

[PaulDalex]

I do backgrounds redos all the time and I have such a terrible relation to PS and its infinite bugs that I resolved to just use the eraser tool refining at 200% by hands.
PS is so buggy that sometimes I find cleaned areas full of dirty pixels.
Anyway I appreciate the suggestions and I will try them.
You see the point is that every method works fine with toy cases.
But the everyday real challenge is to separate a model saving all of her hairs. And no method I tested so far will do

 

[Dwig]

Thank you all for the great tips, have managed to use the Clone tool and replicated what is shown above in the 3rd response to my query, amazed that I didn't know how this could be done so simply.
...

To expand on the technique:

• Create a new layer in Ps
• Set the Clone tool to use all visible layers
• Use the Clone tool with the new layer selected

You can now easily Erase errors by erasing on the new layer and, better yet, you can add a mask to the new layer and paint on the mask to refine the edges of the cloned pixels. In the OP's image, you would be able to clone the background building down and slightly over the hair of the girl in the foreground and then mask the extra cloned pixels to clean the edge of her head. You can also then use the Masks panel to further refine the edge of the mask to help hide any artificial appearance.

 

[bence8810]

So this thread came back to life!

Since the time I asked this question, I haven't used the technique once for making someone disappear from my photos.
Also ended up wet-printing the frame from above and I just played with contrast and exposure to make the person above the girl's head blend into the background more. It's still there but won't attract the eye so quickly as in its original form.

The clone tool does wonders and the knowledge I learned via this thread I am now using for cleaning my images where the negative is scratched or really dirty. Wish I could get the same skill so easily in the darkroom...

Cheers again!
Ben

 

[bence8810]

As an aside, Stalin's apparatchiks had this down to a fine art in the days before Photoshop. 🙁

Checked this one more time on Wiki and since now I am active in the darkroom too (as opposed to the time I originally posted this), I begin to wonder how they did this.

Looking at the image below, the edited one has much higher contrast and therefore a lot less detail. Do you think they used the original negative or created a new one by taking a picture of the original photo with some edits on paper?

Ben

 

[Roger Hicks]

As an aside, Stalin's apparatchiks had this down to a fine art in the days before Photoshop. 🙁

Those who fell into his disfavour were not only killed they also disappeared from official images to become "non persons". What a charmer but then again this was common practice in the "worker's paradise" so he was only following precedent set by others including Lenin who did this with his enemies.

On a more serious note. . . .

Dear Peter,

Surely a less serious note -- unless you're planning on slaughtering people. Rough figures: Hitler 16 million, Stalin 32 million, Mao 64 million...

Cheers,

R.