Tutorial Three - Photobomb Removal and Fixing Boo Boos!
OH, what a LOVELY day!
BEAUTIFUL day to take a picture at the beach.
So, you aim your camera, and you THINK you got a great shot.
THIS is what you think you got:
BEAUTIFUL day to take a picture at the beach.
So, you aim your camera, and you THINK you got a great shot.
THIS is what you think you got:
Then you get home, check your photos on the big screen, and...
DERP!!!!
DERP!!!!
We have all been there... photos get ruined all the time, for a number of reasons.
Let's say someone takes a lovely photo of you, and on the background, someone is sticking out their tongue.
Or, you have to take a photo for picture day, and you want to scan it and send to your family, but the giantest ginormest zit showed up just the night before.
What to do? What to do?
Well, one of the gazillion ways to fix such things on Photoshop is by using the cloning tool and the healing tool.
These may seem similar, but really, work VERY differently.
Let's start with the cloning tool. It is located on the vertical tool box, just below your paintbrush tool.
Let's say someone takes a lovely photo of you, and on the background, someone is sticking out their tongue.
Or, you have to take a photo for picture day, and you want to scan it and send to your family, but the giantest ginormest zit showed up just the night before.
What to do? What to do?
Well, one of the gazillion ways to fix such things on Photoshop is by using the cloning tool and the healing tool.
These may seem similar, but really, work VERY differently.
Let's start with the cloning tool. It is located on the vertical tool box, just below your paintbrush tool.
So, how do you use the cloning tool?
Cloning works by grabbing a part of the scene and placing where you want.
Sounds easy, right? But there are many different ways to use the cloning tool.
For instance; I always use the cloning tool with fuzzy edge brushes... EXCEPT when there are very sharp edges on the picture. In that case, I move the hardness to 100%.
First, if you have a huge area that you need covered, you will want to use the cloning tool at 100% opacity.
Set the brush to have zero hardness (fuzzy edge) brush, and be SMART with the size of the brush; if you are covering a zit, then just make it big enough for that purpose. BUT If you are covering a dog, then make it big enough to cover at least a quarter of the dog.
Cloning is a bit of a logical experiment.
To SAMPLE a portion of your picture, click on alt while using the clone tool; notice the cursor will turn into a cross inside a circle.
Cloning works by grabbing a part of the scene and placing where you want.
Sounds easy, right? But there are many different ways to use the cloning tool.
For instance; I always use the cloning tool with fuzzy edge brushes... EXCEPT when there are very sharp edges on the picture. In that case, I move the hardness to 100%.
First, if you have a huge area that you need covered, you will want to use the cloning tool at 100% opacity.
Set the brush to have zero hardness (fuzzy edge) brush, and be SMART with the size of the brush; if you are covering a zit, then just make it big enough for that purpose. BUT If you are covering a dog, then make it big enough to cover at least a quarter of the dog.
Cloning is a bit of a logical experiment.
To SAMPLE a portion of your picture, click on alt while using the clone tool; notice the cursor will turn into a cross inside a circle.
Then, just click on the blemish you want to fix.
Starting to look better! Work slowly. Easy does it!
But what happens if the blemish is so big, there is not enough source material to cover it?
For instance, on the beach picture, there would be no way to cover that girl up. The sample to the right of the girl on the foreground is too, too small, and when the sample is small, you get a choppy look.
It would end up looking like this:
But what happens if the blemish is so big, there is not enough source material to cover it?
For instance, on the beach picture, there would be no way to cover that girl up. The sample to the right of the girl on the foreground is too, too small, and when the sample is small, you get a choppy look.
It would end up looking like this:
That looks so choppy, everyone would know you Photoshopped the image.
So, to fix the image in that case, I FOUND an ocean picture, and copied and pasted onto my picture, on a new layer.
Then I colorized it to match the other size (remember Tutorial 2?)
Then, applying a mask to my ocean layer, I went to town.
I fixed the edges up, and missing portions, and removed the girl's head, by using cloning.
Then I selected the whole new ocean part and used a GAUSSIAN BLUR (Tutorial 1) to make it fuzzy like the rest.
To finalize, I used my brush with white at 50% opacity, on Normal setting, and painted the waves a bit whiter, to match the ones on the other side. I could have matched the colours better, but hey, it looks pretty good.
And that's it!
Ready to give it a try? Here are the sources:
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And once you are done with this one, maybe you would like to try your hand at a couple more.
These can be fixed without adding any other pictures:
These can be fixed without adding any other pictures:
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A super cool thing about the cloning tool is that it is perfect when fixing straight things too; notice that when you sample something, then go over to paint it, a faint line appears in the middle of the cross hairs? Well, that is so you can match a possible straight line, for instance. This way you can blend something perfectly and no one will ever notice.
Now, fixing blemishes on a face is a little different.
This is our client, Jane. She ate a kilo of chocolate the week before grad photos and needs our help.
Download her photo below:
Download her photo below:
| jane.jpg |
This is tricky!!
So far, we have used cloning at 100%; but how about when you are fixing skin tones and things like that?
In that case, this is what I do:
I use the clone tool with an opacity of 100%, with a hardness of 0, and remove all the obvious blemishes.
Sample by holding alt-click over a good area, then dot the bad area with the cursor by clicking the mouse.
It will feel like, "Click, click. Click, click. Click, click."
NOT like click, swoop. You are really just dotting the bad marks to start...
So far, we have used cloning at 100%; but how about when you are fixing skin tones and things like that?
In that case, this is what I do:
I use the clone tool with an opacity of 100%, with a hardness of 0, and remove all the obvious blemishes.
Sample by holding alt-click over a good area, then dot the bad area with the cursor by clicking the mouse.
It will feel like, "Click, click. Click, click. Click, click."
NOT like click, swoop. You are really just dotting the bad marks to start...
Ok, big blemishes gone.
I would stop right here, because I think she is beautiful and I love the texture of skin, but people usually like to see a more even skin.
To even the skin, you will use the cloning brush, but make it bigger, and with an opacity of 30 or so.
Sample from big areas, like cheek and forehead; the overlapping will start making the face smoother.
I would stop right here, because I think she is beautiful and I love the texture of skin, but people usually like to see a more even skin.
To even the skin, you will use the cloning brush, but make it bigger, and with an opacity of 30 or so.
Sample from big areas, like cheek and forehead; the overlapping will start making the face smoother.
There we go. This is what we have:
Of course, some would still say, "it doesn't look like the fake magazines with the perfect Barbie skin!"
I say, ok weirdos, let's plastify the poor girl a little more, then.
Duplicate the layer with the girl.
Now, rename the new layer "blur".
Apply the Gaussian Blur filter to this layer, and reduce the radius to about 4 pixels (if the image was bigger, you would need more pixels).
Finally, REDUCE the opacity of this blur layer to 50%.
You should have the following:
I say, ok weirdos, let's plastify the poor girl a little more, then.
Duplicate the layer with the girl.
Now, rename the new layer "blur".
Apply the Gaussian Blur filter to this layer, and reduce the radius to about 4 pixels (if the image was bigger, you would need more pixels).
Finally, REDUCE the opacity of this blur layer to 50%.
You should have the following:
This looks AWFUL!!!
AAAWFUL!!!
Let's make it BETTER!
Now, select your ERASER tool, at 100% opacity. The brush should be reasonably big.
AAAWFUL!!!
Let's make it BETTER!
Now, select your ERASER tool, at 100% opacity. The brush should be reasonably big.
You will erase the blur layer with a bigger brush, and bring back all the important details, such as eyes, eyebrows, hair, neck, the contour of the face, and the sides of the nostrils.
Your result should be something like this:
Your result should be something like this:
Which I find a bit much, but hey, if it floats your ice cube, then go for it.
In the end, if you want her cheeks to look a little more plump, you can go back and add highlights with the brush tool on soft light, a white colour selected, and a very low opacity -- like 20% or less.
This concludes our cloning and healing tutorial.
"Ahem. Mrs. J? You didn't say a thing about healing."
Hmmm, ok...
So, healing is a tricky thing. It can help finish your picture, but it can also wreck it.
For healing to work, you have to find a good patch of very even, very nice colour, and then sample from it. But it must also be very close to the area you want to heal, otherwise it will be obvious.
It is very useful for smoothing little things, but you can achieve nicer, easier results with cloning.
Want to try? Do this:
Save your new Jane and then, go back to your original Jane picture .
Now, get the healing tool to have these settings:
In the end, if you want her cheeks to look a little more plump, you can go back and add highlights with the brush tool on soft light, a white colour selected, and a very low opacity -- like 20% or less.
This concludes our cloning and healing tutorial.
"Ahem. Mrs. J? You didn't say a thing about healing."
Hmmm, ok...
So, healing is a tricky thing. It can help finish your picture, but it can also wreck it.
For healing to work, you have to find a good patch of very even, very nice colour, and then sample from it. But it must also be very close to the area you want to heal, otherwise it will be obvious.
It is very useful for smoothing little things, but you can achieve nicer, easier results with cloning.
Want to try? Do this:
Save your new Jane and then, go back to your original Jane picture .
Now, get the healing tool to have these settings:
The idea is the same as with the cloning tool:
If you hold Alt, then you can sample a portion of the skin.
Test and see what it does for your picture.
Here, download this guy and try to make his skin look more even using what you have learned:
If you hold Alt, then you can sample a portion of the skin.
Test and see what it does for your picture.
Here, download this guy and try to make his skin look more even using what you have learned:
| jared.jpg |
This is it for this tutorial. I hope everything makes sense so far!
It's a building thing, so if you got to here but have not seen Tutorial 1, Extra 1 and Tutorial 2, maybe you didn't enjoy this as much :D
Until next time!
It's a building thing, so if you got to here but have not seen Tutorial 1, Extra 1 and Tutorial 2, maybe you didn't enjoy this as much :D
Until next time!
