Eye Contact

[Colin Southern]

Well i did it after much messing around and im not sure i could repeat it!

Well it wasnt quick but it is dirty and i did learn a lot, i did the following and would ask if it was the best way.

created a duplicate layer
cloned out roughly the man and the child ingnored the main subject
unlocked the original layer and applied a mask.
painted out the main subject
this is where i got lost cause i couldnt get the girl to apear in the cloned layer and in the end i dragged the mask onto the cloned layer and it worked...
how should have i have done it?

Looks pretty good to me. I would however also address other global image issues such as sharpening and levels. Good job though.

[Shadowman]

Well i did it after much messing around and im not sure i could repeat it!

Well it wasnt quick but it is dirty and i did learn a lot, i did the following and would ask if it was the best way.

created a duplicate layer
cloned out roughly the man and the child ingnored the main subject
unlocked the original layer and applied a mask.
painted out the main subject
this is where i got lost cause i couldnt get the girl to apear in the cloned layer and in the end i dragged the mask onto the cloned layer and it worked...
how should have i have done it?

Mark,

Nice effort, not sure if it is the correct method but I would have done it the old and slow way (plenty of cloning and spot healing), good to see there are alternative methods available.

[Mark von Kanel]

Looks pretty good to me. I would however also address other global image issues such as sharpening and levels. Good job though.

One tecnique at a time Colin! i would normally deal with most of the others in LR so learning them in PS is on the back burner. im getting more artifacts around the edge of the sbject than you are how do i make the transition more smooth

[bnnrcn]

Very nice photo with a nice lady after cloning the unnecessary bits and pieces

[Shadowman]

Very nice photo with a nice lady after cloning the unnecessary bits and pieces

Binnur,

Thanks for the comments for my portion of the final image and thanks again to Colin and Mark.

[IzzieK]

Absolutely good after all the edits...nicer and better...

[John 2]

Just to add to Colin's technique, I trick I learned many years ago was to hang around the spot and take a quick shot or two when everyone has moved away and then to use it to rebuild an overly crowded background. One can't always herd the troops into an acceptable pose and setting, but with a bit of planning (and patience) it's easy to have the material and plan to fix these type of shots.

Keeping the same camera settings (especially the aperture) simplifies cleanup in post.

This is a very effective technique. Best with a tripod though. I use this in places like railway platforms where there are a lot of people milling around. As to the original image, the model is worth isolating. In the un cropped version I'm led to wondering what the guy in the background is photographing.

[Shadowman]

Absolutely good after all the edits...nicer and better...

Agreed.