Some help needed - Clone Stamp

Barks

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Paul
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Hi everyone,

I've been working on this photo I took last sunday morning. This is the original ...

Sunrise Original by saintsman_barks, on Flickr

and this is the original, cropped

Sunrise Crop Type 1 by saintsman_barks, on Flickr

and I think it's a good photo ruined by the pylon and power lines. I've had a go at improving it by cropping out the pylon on the left and cloning out the pole on the right hand side and again cropping the water in the foreground to get rid of the reflection of the cloned out pole to get this ...

Sunrise over Daventry Country Park by saintsman_barks, on Flickr

And this where my PP and PS abilities run out. I'd like to have a go at completely getting rid of the power lines and the only way I know of is the clone stamp tool. I know how the clone stamp works and what it does but even after playing with brush sizes and hardness etc I still can't come up with anything that doesn't look very badly edited.

I'm hoping that some of you PP experts don't mind doing two things. Firstly, have a play with the original and/or cropped photos (both should click up to their original size, albeit jpeg unfortunately) to show me what can be done. And then secondly to tell me how you went about getting the results you got i.e. what settings you used and where you cloned from etc.

I suspect it's more technique than technical knowhow I'm lacking but I could probably do with some pointers on both.

Thanks everyone :thumbs:
 
Instead of cropping out the pylon try cloning it out, but leave the tree unless you want a tall think picture.

First thing I would do is create a curves or levels layer so I can temporarily lighten the picture and see what I am doing.

When using the clone tool remember you can change it size, edge softness/hardness and opacity as required, I constantly change any and all of these when I am cloning and also use ctrl+z a lot to undo something I have just done if I am not happy with it.

The line just in the top of the grass, use a small brush to clone out the pole and then using a soft cloning tool take some of the grass and gently add it to the top to give the uneven finish again (this might be more difficult if you are using a mouse rather than a pen where you can decrease the pressure)
 
Theres a free download plug-in called wireworm (I think) it's made for removing wires.
 
Instead of cropping out the pylon try cloning it out, but leave the tree unless you want a tall think picture.

First thing I would do is create a curves or levels layer so I can temporarily lighten the picture and see what I am doing.

When using the clone tool remember you can change it size, edge softness/hardness and opacity as required, I constantly change any and all of these when I am cloning and also use ctrl+z a lot to undo something I have just done if I am not happy with it.

The line just in the top of the grass, use a small brush to clone out the pole and then using a soft cloning tool take some of the grass and gently add it to the top to give the uneven finish again (this might be more difficult if you are using a mouse rather than a pen where you can decrease the pressure)

Yes i'm using a mouse unfortunately. I've had a bit of a proper go at cloning out the pylon and power lines. I'll put my progress so far in a new post.

Thanks for your help.
 
This is my progress so far, after about an hour or so of work. Let me know what you think to it. Personally I think the tree to the left where the pylon was still looks too pylon shaped.

I've got the one difficult power line that runs through the grass and then the reflection of the cloned out pole in the water to go.

If anybody has any suggestions about how to go about cloning the reflection they'll be greatly received.


Sunrise WIP by saintsman_barks, on Flickr
 
Here is my go it was done 90% of the time with the clone stamp tool and a little bit with the patch tool.
I just zoomed in close and did a little at a time, occasionally altering the opacity and the blending modes i.e. lighten colour/darken colour.
Finished with removing noise then high pass sharpen.

G7Qm8.jpg

larger version http://i.imgur.com/JEceF.jpg
 
Thanks Dale, looks good. You've done a much better job of the tree than I did. But for a first ever serious attempt at anything like this i'm not going to be too hard on myself about it.

I'm still using CS3 so I don't have the patch tool, but the wireworm plug in mentioned earlier in this thread does a similar job i think.
 
Hi Paul,

The patch tool was in CS2 so you probably do have it :)

Really? I can't necessarily say why but i was under the impression the patch tool was only added in CS4 onwards. If i have it i've never noticed. But i've only had CS3 for a couple of months and i'm not one for reading manuals ;)

Next time in front of my pc i'll have a look.
 
Really? I can't necessarily say why but i was under the impression the patch tool was only added in CS4 onwards. If i have it i've never noticed. But i've only had CS3 for a couple of months and i'm not one for reading manuals ;)

Next time in front of my pc i'll have a look.

This will help you find it, I find it to be really useful it is worth spending a little time practicing with it.
97hnE.jpg
 
I finally got around to it again this morning, work gets in the way of the good stuff. When i knew it was there i found it quite easily, i think it was just that because i thought it was added in CS4 onwards i'd never really looked for/noticed it.

As I said i got around to it again this morning, this is a finished version of it, probably not the final version though, the pylon/tree to the left need more work. This has everything i wanted to get rid of gotten rid of, noise reduction and slight sharpening via high pass filter.


Sunrise over Daventry Country Park 2 by saintsman_barks, on Flickr

What do you think?

It's a little rought around the egdes i know, but for a first attempt i'm reasonably pleased with it.
 
Mmmmm i can't say i'd really given much thought to the water, but i see your point. The black thing, a duck or something i think, does break up the horizontal line of blue in the water.

Still more work to do.
 
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