How to remove people, cars, etc. in Photoshop.

[russellsnr]

Hi, I came across this today and if you have Photoshop and don't want people, cars etc in an image. Don't no if it has been up before?
https://luminous-landscape.com/makin...hings-go-away/

Russ

[pnodrog]

I think most of us are aware it can be done but it is interesting to see a very clear and easy to follow tutorial.

[Jeff S]

Interesting process. I tried it with four hand-held photos of sailboats and swimmers (approximately 5 of each in the original photographs) and a parachutist. Even though the horizons were all slightly off and the water was moving throughout the four original photos, I was able to get a reasonably clear image using the process you highlighted.





For fun, I enlarged the photo to 24 x 17 to see what imperfections there were in the water. There were quite a few problems throughout the water. There also were some in the sky. It appears that the lack of a tripod for the original four photos made a lot of difference as the details are not very good at the larger size. However, I was more interested in the effect the process would have on moving water and, but for the hand-hold nature of the experiment, the water would not be too problematic for smaller images.

[Shadowman]

Thanks.

[chauncey]

IMHO...if it's worth squeezing that shutter, it's worth using a tripod.
Moving water presents problems...maybe use another technique.

[Manfred M]

Stacking this way is a well known technique, with a number of variants. I've used it to remove tourists from well know tourist sites and can easily be adapted to hand held images (as long as one doesn't change the focal length the image is being shot at). This is an example I've posted before where I used this technique and hand-held the camera.

[Thlayle]

So this is not a technique I was aware of until now. It sounds like a great tool & fairly easy to use.

I wonder though: is there a stacking mode that can do the opposite? Let's say you wish to portray more than what was there in a given moment. Can that be done as easily?

[chauncey]

Yes it can...using the layer brush technique.

[Manfred M]

So this is not a technique I was aware of until now. It sounds like a great tool & fairly easy to use.

I wonder though: is there a stacking mode that can do the opposite? Let's say you wish to portray more than what was there in a given moment. Can that be done as easily?

You could have some real fun by showing the same person in different parts of the image!

[Loose Canon]

I wonder though: is there a stacking mode that can do the opposite? Let's say you wish to portray more than what was there in a given moment. Can that be done as easily?

Yes there is Randy.

Load photos into layers in Photoshop after running through ACR to get batch adjustments to all images. Select all layers and go to Edit>Auto-Align Layers. Tick “Auto”, un-tick “Vignette Correction” and “Geometric Distortion” (should have already done this in ACR and you never want to do “Lens Corrections” twice or you will be “correcting” and already corrected image and this will make it incorrect! Hit “Okay”.

With all layers still selected- Edit>Auto-Blend Layers. Tick “Stack Images” and “Seamless Tones and Colors”. Tap “Okay”. Voila, blended!

Highlight all layers and flatten layers or better yet highlight all layers and merge visible layers (Shift-alt[option]-command[control]-e). This will flatten all layers on a new layer above your layer stack leaving the stack intact.

Tweak to your Heart’s Desire!

Here is an example. The champagne bottle and glasses remained constant. I stacked multiple images all under the same lighting to get more bubbles in the shot than I was able to get in one frame with just one "bubble blowing"!

[russellsnr]

I am in disapointed mode now!!

Why?
Because I use Photoshop CS6 (not extended version) and you cannot do this is basic CS6 so now looking for another software that can do it!! Anyone??? Thanks Russ

[Thlayle]

Yes there is Randy.

Load photos into layers in Photoshop after running through ACR to get batch adjustments to all images. Select all layers and go to Edit>Auto-Align Layers. Tick “Auto”, un-tick “Vignette Correction” and “Geometric Distortion” (should have already done this in ACR and you never want to do “Lens Corrections” twice or you will be “correcting” and already corrected image and this will make it incorrect! Hit “Okay”.

With all layers still selected- Edit>Auto-Blend Layers. Tick “Stack Images” and “Seamless Tones and Colors”. Tap “Okay”. Voila, blended!

Highlight all layers and flatten layers or better yet highlight all layers and merge visible layers (Shift-alt[option]-command[control]-e). This will flatten all layers on a new layer above your layer stack leaving the stack intact.

Tweak to your Heart’s Desire!

Here is an example. The champagne bottle and glasses remained constant. I stacked multiple images all under the same lighting to get more bubbles in the shot than I was able to get in one frame with just one "bubble blowing"!

Thanks, Terry. What an awesome example too. Great info on the details. Makes me really want to try this out, though it looks like it might work best with simple backgrounds where there's no potential for distracting movements of background elements. Wow, though.

[Loose Canon]

You’re surely most welcome Randy.

There are a couple of “gotchas”. Similar to the OP link regarding removing subjects, when you add subjects it is best that you don’t have “two bubbles in one place” when you merge. If you do Photoshop will blend them together and you will get the dreaded “two-headed bubble” or god only knows what kind of horrifying zombie “bubble” mutation!

But if you used this technique for example, you could load up the highway in the OP link with cars rather than removing them. Again, the cars need to be in different places in each shot.

You’re right on in assessing best results for a scene/background that doesn’t change but there are any number of things one might composite within that scene using the blending/merging tools.

And I was pretty sure this could be done in CS6, too if memory serves (and my memory serving anything is at best a 50-50 shot!).

[proseak]

Russell, you can do this in CS6 std, but you need Extended to fully automate it, by means of Stack Moces in Smart Objects.

Try this. Select all the pics in Bridge, do whatever you need to do in ACR. Back in Bridge, Select all the pics again, then Tools>Photoshop>Load Files as Layers. Select all the layers in Photoshop>Edit>Auto Align Layers, and accept the Auto option. When this is done, either add layer Masks to each of the layers, and paint the tourists etc with black on the mask for each image. You can also just use the eraser on each layer to get rid of unwanted objects, but it makes it impossible to re-edit the images.

HTH

Peter

[jcuknz]

This is all dreadfully old hat and I have been doing things like it in PSP for years.
The donkey was standing in 'it' as I drove past but moved so I re-created what I had seen, in another version 'somewhere' I removed the barbed wire.

March 2003 "what a donkey!" or jackass in America

2005 probably "The Lonely Pig" Boulder CO Mall

and not what I was looking for ..... I had a computer crash some years back and there are gaps ... shot was a seagul hunting for flies of something and came from about seven shots .... but thi s one is a 'fun' shot not 'art'

2011 maybe at my model engineering club.

What I like about PSP as opposed to Photoshop is that one can enlarge or decrease as a percentage so lens movement zooming is not too great a problem .... then there is the alignment process of reducing the top layer density to see the lower layer through it for alignment .. use this for hand held panos mostly. But people seem to want the programme to do everything for them and do not realise it has been going on for years without gimmics which may or may not work as I found with the jet plane recently ... I had the wing selected but it dissapeared URRRGH!

[jcuknz]

More recently on my first outing with my MFT G3 ... the cloud had NOT cleared when the main shot was taken.

"After the Shower"

[Thlayle]

This is all dreadfully old hat and I have been doing things like it in PSP for years.

Old hat, new hat...no matter as long as it fits and suits the wearer.

[russellsnr]

I have after posting found that this can be done in GIMP along with a GIMP plug-in called G'MIC.
Unreal that it is available in a FREE software but not in Adobe products unless you take the Extended or CC version/s at hundreds of pounds/dollars.
Russ

[Simon Garrett]

The automated method shown in that tutorial is great if you have lots of images. The limitation is that, for every part of the image, you need many more images with that part uncluttered and compared to those with clutter to be removed. Otherwise Photoshop won't always working out correctly what is clutter to be removed and what is wanted.

Sometimes if you are trying to remove crowds in front of a building, say, you may have for each part of the image just one or two images with no people in front and many with people. In that case, the auto method often won't work. It's quite easy to do it manually (but can be time consuming if there are lots of images).

If the auto method doesn't work, load up all the images in layers (then Edit -> Auto align layers if they're not perfectly aligned), and for each layer create a layer mask and paint black at 100% opacity on the mask (not on the image!) over the objects you want to remove (to make them transparent). Provided every pixel has at least one image without clutter this works. I've found that where you have a fairly small number of images to work on (maybe 4 or 5) this is fairly quick and very effective - often more effective than the auto method with only a small number of images.

[jcuknz]

I have after posting found that this can be done in GIMP along with a GIMP plug-in called G'MIC.
Unreal that it is available in a FREE software but not in Adobe products unless you take the Extended or CC version/s at hundreds of pounds/dollars.
Russ

I am glad that Adobe is so expensive so when I started it was quoted at over a thousand local dollars while PSP was around $300 and I was guided to a comparable, superior in ways, product*. From a brief glimpse of GIMP I do not think it is a comparable product. I regret that the founder[s] of PSP JASC sold out since I do not think the 'service' I get from Corel is as good as that I got from JASC. My current problem of getting a DVD but no key to open it and several e-mails getting lost in their system kind of puts me off what is a very good product. But really there is so little 'improvement' possible with these programmes that it is questionable as if getting 'upgrades' is worth the effort.

*Over the years I have had a couple of versions of Photoshop and believe that if you start with one you are unlikely to meld with the other