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Placing Someone Into a Disney Photo
By: Brian MacGowan
We have successfully added me and our youngest daughter into the picture and by all accounts we could stop there. But we will go further
to make this a stronger image. The people in the background are a distraction, especially since they are around our heads; the corner
of the red bench in the foreground is also a visual distraction, and finally the all white sky is over powering, that sky must go.
Send in the Clones
The Cloning Tool is one of the best tools to remove unwanted elements.
For best results do not use an overly large brush Size. A Hardness
of 0 will allow the area being cloned to blend with the pixels beneath. I will often lower the Opacity anywhere from 50% to 75% and
then build up the area slowly.
When using the clone tool it is important to pick cloning areas that
are similiar to parts of the area that is being removed. The eye is very quick to pick up on patterns, because of this it is also
important to remember to frequently change the source of cloning area. If you notice a pattern emerging, lower the opacity of the
brush, select a new cloning source and place in some new details to break up the pattern.
Are There no People at WDW?
Now that that distracting bench is out of the way, let's get rid of
a few people. Using the same technique as above the people in the background were cloned out of the image. By the time I was finished
it appeared that we were the only four people in the area.
The Sky is NO Longer the Limit
The final step in improving the image is to remove the sky. To remove large homogeneous areas of pixels the best tool to use is the Magic
Wand:
The Magic Wand selects pixels that are the same value of its neighbours.
For example, if you have three pure red pixels side by side, selecting any of the pixels will select all three. In reality, in a photo you
seldom get large groups of the same value pixels grouped around each other. To make selecting easier it is necessary to raise the tolerance
of the tool so that it will pick a wider range of pixels:
To eliminate the sky a lot of experimenting with the Magic Wand
is necessary to find the right amount of Tolerance to select a large portion of the sky without selecting important elements such
as the leaves and branches of the Tree of Life. When an acceptable area has been selected, click on Cut from the Edit menu
or press the Delete key to remove the pixels. Select another section of pixels in the sky and repeat the process.
When you get down into the leaves it is important to add some Feather
to the selection. The feather will add some transparency to the outer edge of the selection. When the selection is deleted the pixels
selected by the feather will only be slightly removed. The feather will help reduce the halo effect caused by pixel aliasing.
After a lot of selecting the old sky has been eliminated.
After the old sky is eliminated a new, stock sky is imported into Paint
Shop Pro into a new layer.
This new layer must be placed behind the main layer, otherwise the sky will obliterate the image.
TaaDaa!
With the new sky in place the photo is complete. In recapping both
the Color Balance and Contrast have been adjusted. The image of me and our daughter was cut from its original photo and placed into the
other photo. Excessive pixels around our daughter and me were eliminated. The corner of the red bench in the foreground, as well as the people
in the background have been cloned out, and the overpowering white sky has been replaced by a more pleasing sky.
Here is the result:
I hope that you have enjoyed this article. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me at bj-macgowan@rogers.com
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Do you require any photo restoration or photos that could stand improving? Contact me at the above e-mail address, I can offer you reasonable
rates. For Disney related photos, I'll even barter for Disney memorabilia, especially pins.
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