Eye Contact

[Shadowman]

Crop or no crop.

[FootLoose]

Crop. And I would crop more - about her waist, just underneath the bag strap.

[picsfrommt]

Yup. Crop. The guy behind her is distracting. I don't know if I'd go as far as Greg on cropping the bottom. I think the kid add a little interest. Try both and see how each one works.

[ST1]

Difficult call John, which I suspect as you've asked the question you are undecided about the overall image.
Here's my thoughts which I suspect only add to the crop/no crop issue you have, "if" you had all of the guys head available then my answer would be no crop. But if you don't have that and you wish to keep the image, then I would try to remove him though I suspect that would be time consuming and tricky.

[Shadowman]

Crop. And I would crop more - about her waist, just underneath the bag strap.

Thanks Greg.

[Shadowman]

Difficult call John, which I suspect as you've asked the question you are undecided about the overall image.
Here's my thoughts which I suspect only add to the crop/no crop issue you have, "if" you had all of the guys head available then my answer would be no crop. But if you don't have that and you wish to keep the image, then I would try to remove him though I suspect that would be time consuming and tricky.

Peter,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Yes, I was concentrating on removing as much of the guy as possible, the upper torso would be somewhat easy, it's the legs below, which would require some work with the baby carriage, that would create a bit of a challenge.

[Mark von Kanel]

John,

im just trying to learn photoshop, id love to have ago at this just for the practise would you mind?

[Shadowman]

John,

im just trying to learn photoshop, id love to have ago at this just for the practise would you mind?

Not at all.

[Colin Southern]

Photoshop ...

... Accept no substitute for subjects this lovely!

[Mark von Kanel]

Colin you take all the fun out of life, still i suppose it gives me a bench mark!

[Shadowman]

Photoshop ...

... Accept no substitute for subjects this lovely!

Nicely done.

[Colin Southern]

Colin you take all the fun out of life, still i suppose it gives me a bench mark!

[Colin Southern]

Nicely done.

Thanks. It's a bit quick and rough, but I hope it's useful to you.

[Shadowman]

Thanks. It's a bit quick and rough, but I hope it's useful to you.

Colin,

Definitely useful. Did you use only a combination of cloning and spot healing, any other techniques?

Thanks

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Definitely useful. Did you use only a combination of cloning and spot healing, any other techniques?

Thanks

Apart from levels adjust and sharpening, just stamp tool onto a separate layer and then erase the overpaint using a combination of selections and/or hand (using reduced opacity to make things easier to see).

Often people make life hard for themselves doing this kind of thing by trying to clone / paint / heal right up to but not over a boundary -- it's easier to paint the corrections on to a blank layer where you can go right over boundaries, and then erase what you need to after getting a selection of what you want to keep from the original layer below.

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing Photoshop excels at - not just the base technique, but the way things like the stamp tool blends in the repair beautifully.

[Manfred M]

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.

[Shadowman]

Apart from levels adjust and sharpening, just stamp tool onto a separate layer and then erase the overpaint using a combination of selections and/or hand (using reduced opacity to make things easier to see).

Often people make life hard for themselves doing this kind of thing by trying to clone / paint / heal right up to but not over a boundary -- it's easier to paint the corrections on to a blank layer where you can go right over boundaries, and then erase what you need to after getting a selection of what you want to keep from the original layer below.

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing Photoshop excels at - not just the base technique, but the way things like the stamp tool blends in the repair beautifully.

Colin,

Thanks for the additional information.

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Thanks for the additional information.

No worries.

[Mark von Kanel]

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?

[Manfred M]

Apart from levels adjust and sharpening, just stamp tool onto a separate layer and then erase the overpaint using a combination of selections and/or hand (using reduced opacity to make things easier to see).

Often people make life hard for themselves doing this kind of thing by trying to clone / paint / heal right up to but not over a boundary -- it's easier to paint the corrections on to a blank layer where you can go right over boundaries, and then erase what you need to after getting a selection of what you want to keep from the original layer below.

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing Photoshop excels at - not just the base technique, but the way things like the stamp tool blends in the repair beautifully.

Exactly! I use a slight variation of this technique and use a layer mask, rather than the eraser tool. That way it is easy to jump back and forth with a black or white brush on the mask to clean up to suit (using the "x" shorrtcut key). That way I can undo over or under erasing. Of course, vary the hardness of the brush to feather in the blended layers.

I find this works better for me than undoing with the "Undo" command or history palette.