Brushes Another composting / cleaning up question

[_alexbrandt_]

Hello,

Another cleaning up question.
I've got this shot of DC taken over a year ago.
I'd like to remove some ugly details such as some construction cranes and other elements.





When I use the healing brush tool, it’s noticeable that something has been done...
How can I blend my healing brush perfectly with the sky?



Thanks,

 

[Rich54]

One word of advice I would offer is "patience". Often, people want one tool and one click to achieve a result. In your situation with the crane, you have a complicated sky gradient and not much opportunity to use the clone stamp, healing brush, etc. What I would suggest instead is to re-create the sky by building-up several layers. Here are some approaches I would take.

• Using the brush tool and the softest setting, take many, many samples of the sky color and manually draw that over the crane. Don't worry, for now, about overlapping with the trees because that can be dealt with later. Do the best you can to sample all the different gradations of the sky and paint them in, allowing for a healthy overlap beyond the crane.
• Once you've got that done, give that layer a healthy Gaussian blur to create a smooth gradient.
• At this point, you've gone from nothing (the crane) to something (the new sky). Add a layer mask to this sky layer and mask away only the crane as best you can.
• From here, you will still see obvious differences between the existing sky and your new sky, but it's much less of a difference vs. the original crane. So now, on a new layer, start again and take many, many samples of the original sky to smooth-over the transition from the original sky to your new sky. It often helps to reduce the brush flow down to 50% or 20% so that you can gradually fade-in the transition from original to new. Once you're done, you may or may not want to apply another Gaussian blur.
• Once you're happy with the colors, you need to add-back the texture. On a new layer, use the lasso tool to create a rough selection of your new sky. Fill that with 50% gray and change the blend mode to Overlay.
• Now go to Filter>Noise>Add Noise. Choose Guassian and monochromatic. An Amount of about 5% often works.
• Give this noise a small Gaussian blur. In this case around 0.4 pixels. Experiment with the layer opacity to make the texture blend in with the rest of the image. In this case, a layer opacity of 100% seems pretty good.
• Once all of this is done, create a layer mask to bring back all the trees in the foreground. Based on your post above, you've already done a good job with that.

 

[JeffK]

Hi Alex -
I was able to get a decent result using the Content Aware fill.
Using Lasso selection tool, draw a selection around the crane - keep it tight (my example is a bit loose):


Then click Edit - Fill and choose Content Aware fill in the dialog:



You'll get something like this:



Keep using it on remaining bits until you get good coverage - I had to use it 3 times:

For instance:


You can use a very soft and small clone stamp tool to make any additional touchups.
This was my final result:


.
Don't work on it as a jpg. If you have it saved as a tiff, that's the best. Or just open the jpg and save as a psd file, then do the work. Don't constantly close and reopen jpgs since it's a lossy file and you'll begin losing quality.
Hope this helps.
- Jeff

 

[_alexbrandt_]

Hi Alex -
I was able to get a decent result using the Content Aware fill.
Using Lasso selection tool, draw a selection around the crane - keep it tight (my example is a bit loose):
View attachment 116757

Then click Edit - Fill and choose Content Aware fill in the dialog:

View attachment 116758

You'll get something like this:

View attachment 116759

Keep using it on remaining bits until you get good coverage - I had to use it 3 times:

For instance:
View attachment 116760

You can use a very soft and small clone stamp tool to make any additional touchups.
This was my final result:

View attachment 116763
.
Don't work on it as a jpg. If you have it saved as a tiff, that's the best. Or just open the jpg and save as a psd file, then do the work. Don't constantly close and reopen jpgs since it's a lossy file and you'll begin losing quality.
Hope this helps.
- Jeff

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for the tips. Your method seems to be the easiest.
However, I don't exactly have the same options when using the Content-Aware Fill and can't get it to work.

This is what I see




I tried using the Sampling Brush Tool to indeed sample an area close to the crane but the message comes back.



Any clues?

 

[_alexbrandt_]

Neverminde. I managed by using Edit-> Fill and then selected Content Aware in the drop-down.
Thanks !

 

[JeffK]

OK - I see you're using PS 2020. The tool has changed with this release with some flexible options. I'm using CC 2018.
First - make sure you've chosen the layer that you want to change.
Then head over to Aaron Nace of PHLearn and this video - that should take care of your questions with good eplanations and visuals:

Testing the New Content Aware Fill in Photoshop 2020

See the new additions to Content-Aware in Photoshop 2020, and how it performs on both simple and more complex object removal.

phlearn.com

Let us know how you do!

- Jeff

 

[JeffK]

Neverminde. I managed by using Edit-> Fill and then selected Content Aware in the drop-down.
Thanks !

OK - glad you got to where you want to go.
But check out the video when you get a chance. The new version (Edit - Content Aware Fill not Edit - Fill) has some interesting options.
PHLearn is a great resource. On his website, he has 30 Days of Photoshop that gives you insights into PS tools in 30 relatively short and free tutorials.
Unmesh Dinda at PIXimperfect also a great teacher. Both have excellent tutorials on YouTube.
Enjoy!
- Jeff

 

[_alexbrandt_]

OK - glad you got to where you want to go.
But check out the video when you get a chance. The new version (Edit - Content Aware Fill not Edit - Fill) has some interesting options.
PHLearn is a great resource. On his website, he has 30 Days of Photoshop that gives you insights into PS tools in 30 relatively short and free tutorials.
Unmesh Dinda at PIXimperfect also a great teacher. Both have excellent tutorials on YouTube.
Enjoy!
- Jeff

Yeah these PHLearn videos are really good its true.