can someone help me with this?

[BradSut26]

im trying to remove all the wires from the trees and the sky in this picture. ive been having trouble getting rid of them without making it look photoshopped. if anyone has the expertise could you do it for me?



ill send you the full size picture if your willing to help out! thanks!

[jiro]

One question if I may - "Did you do an HDR processing on this one?" thanks.

[jiro]

Hello, Brad. I'm not an expert but I think I could learn something if I try to do an edit on the image based on your request. The reason why I asked if there was some HDR process done on the image is because of that very subtle gradient effect between the edges of the trees and the sky. This is what makes the cloning out of the pole lines very tricky. However, I tried to use a different method that might probably work with this image. Here is what I did:

1. Using the combination of the healing brush tool and the clone tool, I started to clone out the wires line by line. I even went a little bit further and decided to clone out the pole line itself since I think it does not add any merit on the whole scene. Also, using my common sense, if I will clone out the pole lines then what's the essence of leaving the pole without any lines in it?

2. Next, since cloning out all those lines would leave harsh tonal transition on the sky (would look dirty as you say looked too photoshopped) I decided to try using a gradient effect to replace the sky with a fake one that is close to the original sky. What I did is to sample the color of the sky very near to the end of the trees and then sample another color of the sky directly at the edge of the frame. So now, I have 2 shades of the sky - one lighter and one darker having that nice gradient transition between them and put this on a new layer using the gradient tool command.

3. I then, extracted the lower half of the image up to the edge of the trees so I can blend this to the gradient sky that I have just made.

4. I combined the gradient sky with the extracted lower details on a single layer.

5. I then made another copy of the edited layer (the one where all the lines were cloned out) and put this on top of the combined layer. I lowered the opacity of this layer to about 16% so as not to show that harsh, murky edit that I did on cloning out the lines.

Here is the whole process in photoshop.



and here is the final edit on your work. I decided to adjust the contrast to add some punch on the image for impact.



Hope this helps, Brad.

[rob marshall]

Jiro

You made a good job of that - and to quote a line from American Beauty "You didn't screw up once!"

I think, Brad, I would have tried to take the shot differently to avoid the problem in the first place. Was it possible to get the car moved? Could you have swung around a bit more to the left to try and avoid the wires? That would have also shown the front wheel, rather than the tyre. You were not far off avoiding the wires - it just needed a higher angle. You forgot to take the step-ladder with you again, didn't you? Always remember - camera, tripod, step-ladder.

[jiro]

Jiro, You made a good job of that - and to quote a line from American Beauty "You didn't screw up once!"

Thanks, Rob.

[Markvetnz]

Willie

You have done an amazing job with those lines. What do you find is the easiest way to make a selection of a "difficult" object (like you did when you did some touch up work on the background with the woman standing in the foreground)? I find it hard to select out exactly what I want to.

Thanks in advance

Mark

[Markvetnz]

Jiro

You made a good job of that - and to quote a line from American Beauty "You didn't screw up once!"

I think, Brad, I would have tried to take the shot differently to avoid the problem in the first place. Was it possible to get the car moved? Could you have swung around a bit more to the left to try and avoid the wires? That would have also shown the front wheel, rather than the tyre. You were not far off avoiding the wires - it just needed a higher angle. You forgot to take the step-ladder with you again, didn't you? Always remember - camera, tripod, step-ladder.

Now Rob - why would we go to all the bother of simply moving a car when we have Willie on our team? Go and wash your mouth out with some soap.

[jiro]

The new selection tool available in Photoshop CS5 is actually versatile enough to do it for you specially with the "refine edge" feature that it has. If you want a more versatile way to extract anything from an image, your best option would be to invest on a third party software. I've tried Fluid Mask (trial version) and it is really great. However, the learning curve is a little bit hard since it is the most technical among the extraction plugin that I have tested. Another one would be onOne software "Mask Pro" which is really good. The learning curve is much better than Fluid Mask (sorry if I am definitely comparing here. Hehehe) as the new version has simplified the selection process considerably. The last one that I tested right now is the "Topaz Remask". A very simple extraction software plugin from Topaz and it works AWESOME! Although it is not as flashy as the first two, its extraction algorithm is very good for me. It's simple to use, not too technical to understand, easy to edit, and not memory hungry. In the end, I bought one and am happy using it right now. That's what I used for this edit. Hope this helps, Mark.

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with Topaz Labs in endorsing their product. I am merely very satisfied with their plugin and so am sharing the news to everyone.

[rob marshall]

Now Rob - why would we go to all the bother of simply moving a car when we have Willie on our team? Go and wash your mouth out with some soap.

Yes, I must admit he's pretty good at it. I don't have the patience. It's worth remembering though that you can often avoid or reduce these problems by changing your shooting position when taking the shot. You should always do that anyway as you may just get a much better angle. Even a small change in position can make a dramatic difference - especially on height.

[jiro]

Yes, I must admit he's pretty good at it. I don't have the patience. It's worth remembering though that you can often avoid or reduce these problems by changing your shooting position when taking the shot. You should always do that anyway as you may just get a much better angle. Even a small change in position can make a dramatic difference - especially on height.

I would definitely agree with Rob, here. If you can make it good on the camera, then you don't need to do a lot of edit on the post-processing to make it great. I think the principle works whether you are a portrait or a landscape or a photographer of any kind. Cheers.

[BradSut26]

thanks jiro and everyone else! i did HDR the photo. my cousin likes the effect and i think it turned out really well on this photo actually. im going to try what you did tomorrow. ill let you know how it goes! your edit looks great! love the contrast bump!

[Markvetnz]

Yes, I must admit he's pretty good at it. I don't have the patience. It's worth remembering though that you can often avoid or reduce these problems by changing your shooting position when taking the shot. You should always do that anyway as you may just get a much better angle. Even a small change in position can make a dramatic difference - especially on height.

Spot on Rob. I always try to get as much right in camera as possible. Sometimes I process a photo and think that there must be more I should be doing to it, but then just leave it at that.

[Markvetnz]

The new selection tool available in Photoshop CS5 is actually versatile enough to do it for you specially with the "refine edge" feature that it has. If you want a more versatile way to extract anything from an image, your best option would be to invest on a third party software. I've tried Fluid Mask (trial version) and it is really great. However, the learning curve is a little bit hard since it is the most technical among the extraction plugin that I have tested. Another one would be onOne software "Mask Pro" which is really good. The learning curve is much better than Fluid Mask (sorry if I am definitely comparing here. Hehehe) as the new version has simplified the selection process considerably. The last one that I tested right now is the "Topaz Remask". A very simple extraction software plugin from Topaz and it works AWESOME! Although it is not as flashy as the first two, its extraction algorithm is very good for me. It's simple to use, not too technical to understand, easy to edit, and not memory hungry. In the end, I bought one and am happy using it right now. That's what I used for this edit. Hope this helps, Mark.

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with Topaz Labs in endorsing their product. I am merely very satisfied with their plugin and so am sharing the news to everyone.

Thanks Willie - I never even thought of the refine edge command. Go figure. I'll try the Topaz plug in you suggest. Love your work BTW.

[RockNGoalStar]

Good work Jiro... ...seriously good work!

[MiniChris]

Oh Willie, you are such a showoff.... I just finished that chapter in my layers tutorial and was experimenting with this photo but you beat me to it and did a far better job than me...I didn't think to do a gradient fill for the sky and drop its opacity like you did to create a more natural sky...but overall, I got a decent result for the test. It is a very good tutorial.

One question, however: when you set the mask ro replace the sky, did you tweak the treeline and play with the extracted layer to bump the contrast, etc or did you wait until you had an overall "finished" image before making your final tone adjustments?

[djg05478]

Awesome Photoshopping Jiro....I don't have the patience for it either, but what you did is top notch work

[jiro]

Oh Willie, you are such a showoff.... I just finished that chapter in my layers tutorial and was experimenting with this photo but you beat me to it and did a far better job than me...I didn't think to do a gradient fill for the sky and drop its opacity like you did to create a more natural sky...but overall, I got a decent result for the test. It is a very good tutorial.

One question, however: when you set the mask ro replace the sky, did you tweak the treeline and play with the extracted layer to bump the contrast, etc or did you wait until you had an overall "finished" image before making your final tone adjustments?

I did the contrast enhancement after all the edit has been made, Chris. Hope this helps.

[jiro]

thanks jiro and everyone else! i did HDR the photo. my cousin likes the effect and i think it turned out really well on this photo actually. im going to try what you did tomorrow. ill let you know how it goes! your edit looks great! love the contrast bump!

You're welcome, Brad.

[jiro]

Awesome Photoshopping Jiro....I don't have the patience for it either, but what you did is top notch work

Thanks, Debbie. Sometimes it's good to learn some tricks because you never know when they will come handy to you in the future.

[ktuli]

Digital Darkroom Workshop at Willie's next week?

- Bill