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Category: Problems with Images

Photography Question 

Irene Troy
 

Need PS Help - Please


 
 
Hi folks - I captured this image of wild turkeys displaying for the hens. I really need to get rid of that awful blue (it's a tarp) in the background and am struggling with my limited PS ability. Can someone please tell me how to remove the tarp without making the image look too doctored? Everything I've tried (cloning, blurring, adjusting the color) has made the image look odd. I use PS-CS3.
Thanks for any help!

Irene


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March 04, 2008

 

Sarah G
  Selective Color is a possibility.

I only have PSE 5 (and rather new at it all too), so I don't know what other majic tricks the pros of PSCS might have in their bag.

There are websites with PSCS instructions on how-to do SC out there.


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March 04, 2008

 
- Dennis Flanagan

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  Actually Irene, if you hadn't said it was a tarp, I would have assumed it was blue sky. If anything in the shot is out of place, to me it is the siding on the building in the upper right corner.


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March 04, 2008

 

Bob Cammarata
  Hello Irene.

Try cropping out the blue part.
You can crop to the top of the tail feathers and also some of the snow at the bottom to create a more panoramic view of "the boys".

Bob


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March 05, 2008

 

Sharon Day
  Hey Irene, color over it. Make it brown. Make a duplicate layer and select "color" for blending mode. Select the brush tool, pick out a color you think would go well and just color over the blue. Coloring does not remove any detail but it will turn everything you brush over approximately the color you choose. At least it won't be so obvious and it's easier than trying to clone.


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March 05, 2008

 

Irene Troy
 
 
 
Thanks, everyone, for the advice! Here are two altered versions using Bob’s idea of cropping and Sharon’s of coloring. I also agree with Dennis about the edge of the house being a distraction. I really don’t know what to do about that since coloring seems to just make it worse and no amount of cropping will remove the corner without taking part of the turkey. My final conclusion is that I want to re-shoot the image! Happily, this is the season of turkey mating ritual so I might just be able to capture a similar image without the distracting backgrounds. Thanks again for all your help.

Irene


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March 05, 2008

 

Irene Troy
 
 
 
Thanks, everyone, for the advice! Here are two altered versions using Bob’s idea of cropping and Sharon’s of coloring. I also agree with Dennis about the edge of the house being a distraction. I really don’t know what to do about that since coloring seems to just make it worse and no amount of cropping will remove the corner without taking part of the turkey. My final conclusion is that I want to re-shoot the image! Happily, this is the season of turkey mating ritual so I might just be able to capture a similar image without the distracting backgrounds. Thanks again for all your help.

Irene


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March 05, 2008

 

Richard Lynch
 
 
 
Irene,
A quick way to get rid of the blue 'issue' is to use selection and masking with some Hue/Saturation changes. Here is an example where I:

1. Made a rough selection of the area where the blue was.

2. Added a Hue/Saturation change to the Blue component to change the Hue (toward brown/yellow), lower saturation and increase lightness (also removes color in this case). As the selection contains the area to the space above the Toms, the other blues remain unaffected.

3. Added a hue saturation to do a similar change to Cyans as was done with the blues (this can be achieved with additional sampling as well as by using the selectors).

4. Added a slight blur to that area using the same selection.

This all serves to lower the impact of the blue considerably as well as fuzz up the background so that the toms stand out a little sharper (without sharpening ;-)

I hope that helps!

Richard Lynch


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March 05, 2008

 

Richard Lynch
  Oh, made that selection (roughly) using the polygon lasso and some feathering (which isn't a pun here ;-)

Richard


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March 05, 2008

 

Irene Troy
  Richard – thank you for the detailed explanation and good ideas! Of-course, if I would only take your class I might actually be able to do this stuff without having to ask for help! I actually tried something similar to what you suggest, but it did not come out even close to what you have done here. I am going to follow your instructions, step-by-step and see how it works. I think that I only worked on the blues and not the cyan, which is probably why it did not look good on my attempt. Anyway, thanks again!

BTW: I still want to just reshoot the turkeys (no pun intended here, either!) and see if I can get a better angle the next time.

Irene


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March 06, 2008

 
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