Last week, I used Content Aware Fill to clean up some telephone lines in an entry primarily about the impact HDR Toning can have on a flat image.  Today, I want to show a few more examples of this new feature in Photoshop CS5.  You can save loads of time in post-processing with this new tool and more easily edit things that would be extremely difficult without it.

Let’s start with something simple. The other night, we were at a nice vineyard, the Oak Barrel Winery, shooting in early evening light.  Sunset was still about an hour off.  I really liked the shadows from the vines and thought the workers added some interest to the image.  That golf cart, however, was ruining my shot.  This kind of work was no big deal with the last version of Photoshop.  Using a mixture of the Clone Stamp and some Healing Brush, I’ve removed this type of obstacle many times.  It probably wouldn’t take me more than five minutes.  With the new Content Aware Fill, it might have taken me two.  You simply put a selection around the offending object and hit Shift-Backspace.  A dialogue box will appear, and you select the content aware option.  The program will sample the surrounding area and fill in the selection with similar pixels.  It doesn’t always work perfectly; you may need to do some touch up.  Here is my photo with the golf cart gone.  Ahhh, much better!

In this second image, I have a much bigger obstacles to get rid of.  There is the tree top creeping in from the bottom of the frame and a shed in the field.  I took care of it quickly, but still wasn’t happy.

The horse was too far from the house, and I wanted another one out there.  There was another horse out there when I pulled up, but I guess it was camera-shy and ran off.  I cropped in tighter and dropped in another horse, while repositioning the original horse.  I added a little Vibrance in Lightroom.  Yeah, I know, I did more than Content Aware Fill, but it needed to be done.

My last example is a much more challenging job.  It began innocently enough: I got up early after a couple days of rain to shoot the mushrooms that always show up.  They’re only there for the day because the hot sun shrivels them in a few hours.  I grabbed the macro and began low-crawling through the grass, just like they taught me in the Army.  I snuck up on the ‘shrooms and clicked away.

The most interesting part of the mushroom is the gills under the cap, so I tried to bend it over gently to get that shot.  Ooops, I was in my Grunt mode and broke the stem.  I took this shot, but, obviously, this is useless.

I decided this would be a good test for Content Aware Fill.  Could I remove the stem and still keep the gills looking “real”?  You can see the results below.  I don’t think I could have done this with just the old Clone Stamp.  Again, I selected the stem, but the first pass didn’t create the final image.  I needed to select different parts in a triangular pattern, towards the center.  It took several selections to get this result.  I’m not sure that this image has any value, other than allowing me a good practice session, but that was good enough for me.  I did a retrograde operation, back to headquarters and processed the images.  Hooah!

Why all the Army talk?  Well, today is the US Army’s birthday.  Happy Birthday to all soldiers, past and present.  I’m proud I was one of you.

Cape Henry, Va Beach, Va

Over the weekend, I was reviewing some old photos and came across a double lighthouse picture that was flat and lifeless.  It was a cloudy morning in Virginia Beach, and the sky was a mush of gray.  I remembered what I saw that morning, but I hadn’t captured it very well.  This happens to photographers every now and then.  When it does, you can delete it or put it into post-processing.  I took it into Photoshop.

I cropped it, and got rid of the telephone pole on the left side.  That still left another pole and the lines across the sky.  I’ve used the Clone Tool and Healing Brush to successfully get rid of similar obstructions in the past – it isn’t a hard fix.  However, it can be a tedious job with constant adjustments to the “fix” to get it right.  This time when I used the Healing Brush, I made sure the Content Aware box was checked and had it knocked out in less than two minutes.  When you’re working on images all the time, that kind of time savings is huge.  I made one or two minor tweaks, and that was it.  I’ll do a blog on this feature later; today, we’re concentrating on HDR Toning.

With everything cleaned up, I jumped into HDR Toning to put a little more life into the shot and put more definition into the clouds. In a “normal” HDR image, you’ll use 3-5 (sometimes more) photos, merged to achieve the wider dynamic range.  In CS5, you do that with a new tool, called HDR Pro.  If you just have one image and you want to get a similar look and feel, you use HDR Toning.  The menu location is: Image, Adjustments, HDR Toning.

The first time you enter this tool, you’ll notice that the default settings give you a highly saturated and highly vibrant image.  Too much for me; I backed them down.  I increased the Detail setting and made some minor adjustments to the Highlights and Shadows.  You should be careful with these sliders because a small movement can have a big effect.  I try to stay away from the over-the-top look of some HDR images, but this is obviously closer to that side.  Everyone won’t like it, but it is better than the original.  You can find some video tutorials on HDR Toning all over the web.  Here are two links to give you a sample: Adobe and Tip Squirrel.

You can do this with portraits, too.  People and their skin do not react nicely to some of the HDR Toning  processes.  So, unless you are looking for those kinds of changes, proceed carefully.  I’m just beginning to get my settings down for that.  As I figure it out, I’ll create custom presets to make things move even more quickly.  Here is a sample.  (And, yes, Content Aware Fill was used to delete the other kids – in under a minute!)  You can used the supplied presets, in addition to your own, to make your work more consistent.  This new version of Photoshop is loads of fun! 

Macro photography is close-up photography. A macro lens reduces the minimum focus distance to a very short distance and allows you to fill the frame with small objects.  At this distance, the depth of field can be measured in millimeters.  Focus is absolutely critical since any change in the camera to subject distance will cause a change in the area of focus.  You should use a tripod to help you maintain the focus exactly where you want it.  A remote trigger or cable release also helps prevent any camera movement.

In order to create a greater depth of field, I frame the object carefully, and manually focus on different planes, taking several photographs.  In Photoshop, I create a stack of these photos and blend the photographs together, masking out the out of focus portion of each photo and leaving the sharp elements.  The remaining composite reveals a sharp macro photograph that cannot be recreated with the camera and lens alone.

The steps are easy.  Place all the photos into one image file, with each photo in its own layer.  Select all layers.  In the Edit menu, choose Auto-Align Layers, and let the program ensure all layers are exactly aligned.  Back in the Edit menu, choose Auto-Blend Layers, and Photoshop creates the masks for each layer.  You may need to crop slightly to compensate for the any ragged edges created in the alignment step.  Nothing to it. 

Just in case you didn’t know, Photoshop CS5 is now shipping.  Both of us have our copies.  I believe the upgrade is worth every penny.  We’ll probably throw in a few blogs in the near future about some of the new features.   Lightroom 3 should be out soon, as they are now in their second public beta.  Another worthwhile upgrade in my opinion.  Lots of fun new toys for the upcoming summer!

Now, I am not a big user of those kinds of things for a couple of reasons: they tend to be overused by some folks; and I’m a frustrated artist and usually have to work hard tot get the exact look I want.  Unlike my brother who can draw, the only thing I can draw (when I stand really still) are flies.  (Wait for the rimshot!  “Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week.”)

Since I can’t draw, I enjoy those effects most.  Bring your photo into Photoshop, and make a duplicate the layer.  You want to keep that background layer in case you want to bring in a little more color after the filter is through with its work or if you’re a strong believer in non-destructive editing.  Once you have two identical layers, go to the “Filter” menu and choose “Artistic.”  There are many choices there, but “Colored Pencil” is at the top, so start there.  A menu with all the effects will appear on the right.  Try clicking through the effects to get a feel for how they will affect your photos.  You have several sliders on each effect that allow you to make adjustments to get just the look you want.  I can give you my formulas, but play with the sliders and create your own.

I also like to take a simple black and white and use the “Graphic Pen” effect.  It can create a nice simple “drawing.”

There are several effects to create a painted effect.  I like the results, but, since I can’t draw, painting is even more foreign to me.

There are several programs out there that can help with turning a photo into something that looks like a painting or sketch.  The favorite seems to be Corel Painter 11.   It is a great program, and they’ll let you try it before you buy it.  I’ve seen beautiful results from several artists, and I’m blown away by the work of Fay Sirkus.  Her work is top notch.

Now that the darkroom is digital, you can try all kinds of effects without ruining your original photo.  I urge you to give them a try.  While all of these are fun, use caution.  You don’t want to over use any one effect unless that is going to become your signature style.

The clone stamp tool lets you select something from within your image and paste a duplicate copy of that area over another part of the image.  When you move your brush, the selected area moves in parallel, and whatever is there will be pasted into your picture.  Without some care you can get eyeballs onto walls, and all sorts of unintended results.

As with most tools in Photoshop you can select the brush size and how soft the edges are from the brush panel at the top.

Keeping the edges soft and the brush size as close to what your target area is, helps hide the effect.  That of course is the idea, you don’t want people to even know that you’ve been there.

Next on the menu bar is the blend Mode box.  These need a tutorial all of their own, but provide a largely untapped level of control. You can choose to only impact dark colors or light colors, for now, you can leave it in Normal mode for most applications.

Opacity allows you to build up layers of sampling, you can hover over the word Opacity and the “scrubby sliders” will appear, all you have to do is drag your cursor left or right to decrease/increase how much transparency you want.  Of course you can type in 50% or 20% or whatever you chose.

I’m not going to touch Flow, as I’ve never adjusted it in all my jobs.  I’m going to skip on over to the layer selection.  Sample:, helps protect your original image.  To me it is important never to damage the original picture, so everything I do is done on its own separate layer.  That way I retain complete control and can go back, even months later if I want to adjust something.  You can sample from the current layer, the ones below, or from all layers.

Remember our groom?  His suit definitely had some issues.

Both his dark suit and white shirt needed repair.  Here is what those repairs look like on their own layer.  They are built up with different levels of opacity and re-sampled frequently to avoid being obvious.

When combined together, well if you look closely enough you can tell, but…

There are tricks to working along the edges and in transition areas, but we will save those for later.

If you really want to know how lots more detail about how it is done, read Katrin Eismann’s wonderful book Photoshop ® Restoration and Retouching.