New content-aware fill in Photoshop

[DanK]

The newest update to Photoshop CC has a new content-aware fill tool. I used it for the first time yesterday, and I am VERY impressed.

You can now access content-aware fill two ways. One is the old way: from edit, fill. This behaves exactly as it used to. The other is a new menu choice, edit, content-aware-fill. If you do this, it does two things differently. First, it asks you to select the source area for the pixels that will be used. Second, it places each edit of this sort on its own layer, so you can come back to any one of them later. And you presumably can adjust their opacity separately, although I haven't yet tried that.

I tried it for retouching an image of variegated rock. The variations in the rock face made it impossible for the old approach to guess correctly all the time what a reasonable source would be. The new function made it quite easy to do, although a bit more time-consuming.

[pschlute]

Yes it is a very neat tool. I like the idea that you can "rub out" bits of the green square to accurately choose your selection area.

[DanK]

Yes it is a very neat tool. I like the idea that you can "rub out" bits of the green square to accurately choose your selection area.

I think we may be talking about two different features. It sounds like you may be talking about something that came with the next-to-last update: photoshop automatically selecting an object from within a selected rectangle. The feature I am talking about is unrelated to that and has nothing to do with selection of the area to be altered. It allows you to select the area from which pixels will be copied to make the alteration. This does not need to be the same shape and size as the area selected for changing. I did all this with the old lasso selection tool, not the AI automatic selection from within a rectangle.

Or am I misunderstanding?

[pschlute]

Select your area in the original photo with lasso tool
menu.....edit/content aware fill
tick the box in the content aware fill dialogue box "show sampling area"

You should now see auto selection or rectangle (if you choose rectangle, mine is green) where the sampling for the replacement pixels will be chosen. Just rub out the bits you dont want. The eraser for the sampling area automatically pops up when you tick "show sampling area"

[pschlute]

This explains it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UncxMAt0C08

[DanK]

Ahh, now I understand what you meant.

I was using the "custom" sampling area option, not the rectangular option. If you use the custom option, there is initially no green area because Photoshop does no selection of source pixels. Instead, you just paint with a brush to create a selection for the source pixels. If you paint over an area you don't want, holding alt while painting removes the green selection.

It allows you to control opacity directly from the content-fill dialog, rather than doing it post hoc from the layers panel, but I haven't yet played with that.

[Manfred M]

In general I will use the "old" content aware fill functionality because quite often it still does a very fast and reasonable job. I'm so used to hitting <Shift><f5>, I will often start there.

In more complex fills or when the legacy tool fails, I will use the new tool. I find that often "Auto" provides an excellent starting point and I will just add or subtract from what Photoshop's algorithms have come up with. I've never bothered with a rectangular selection and have built a custom one on occasion where this looks to be faster and easier than the "Auto" version.

[pschlute]

Adobe gets a lot of bad press from folk who don't like the subscription model, but I think the evolution of this tool alone is a great example of "you get what you pay for".

[DanK]

Adobe gets a lot of bad press from folk who don't like the subscription model, but I think the evolution of this tool alone is a great example of "you get what you pay for".

I agree. I don't particularly like the subscription model as such (I'd rather pay the same amount but own the rights), but I think I am getting good value for the $120/year that it costs me. And the ease of handling upgrades is a plus. I often wait a week or two just in case someone reports bugs, but then it is usually as simply as a single click to upgrade.

[Manfred M]

I find the comments on the subscription model a bit amusing, as we have in with other forms of software - anti-virus, tax return, etc. are effectively annual subscription models and people don't whine about them...