Section 94. Repair Holes and Tears


94. Repair Holes and Tears

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

90 About Removing Scratches, Specks, and Holes


SEE ALSO

93 Remove Specks and Spots


Because of their fragile nature, photographs are easily bent, torn, and scratchedespecially when they are not stored properly. In earlier tasks , you learned how to repair small tears and to remove specks of dust and such, but what do you do if there are a lot of tears, holes, and maybe even old foldlines, and the image is simply in sad shape?

One way in which you can cover up flaws is to use the Clone Brush to copy pixels from an undamaged area. The problem with this method, however, is that unless it's done carefully , the Clone Brush often leaves an unnatural , easily detectable pattern. In this task, you'll learn an alternative method that's both fast and foolproof.

1.
Duplicate the Background Layer

Open the image you want to repair and then click the Duplicate Layer button on the Layer palette. Name the duplicate layer Shifted .

94. Repair Holes and Tears


2.
Shift the Top Layer

In the Layer palette, change the Opacity of the Shifted layer to 50%. This lets you see the Background layer content while you're moving the Shifted layer. You're going to use pieces of the Shifted layer to cover the holes on the Background layer. Click the Move tool on the Tools toolbar and slowly drag the Shifted layer up, down, right, or left, until the torn area on the Background layer is covered by content from the Shifted layer.

NOTE

In this example, we wanted to repair the tear just below and to the right of the family, and the hole along the right edge, so we've moved the Shifted layer to the right.

3.
Move Background Layer to Top

In the Layer palette, reset the Opacity of the Shifted layer to 100%. To be able to move the Background layer to the top, you must first promote it to a full raster layer. Select Layers , Promote Background Layer from the menu. This changes the name of the Background layer to Raster 1 . Now drag the bottom Raster 1 layer to the top of the layer stack.

NOTE

After dragging the Raster 1 layer to the top of the layer stack in step 3, the photo will look as it did originallytears, holes, and everything.

4.
Erase the Holes

Click the Eraser tool on the Tools toolbar. On the Tool Options palette, adjust the Size value so that the eraser is slightly bigger than the defect. Soften the edge a bit by setting Hardness to 50 and Density to 80. Then drag over the defect with the eraser, revealing the Shifted layer beneath .

5.
Merge All Layers

After erasing all the holes and tears, merge the layers into one by choosing Layers, Merge, Merge All (Flatten).

6.
View the Result

After erasing the holes and tears using the Eraser tool, I followed up with the Clone Brush to fill the ghastly tear at the top of the image. Then I merged all layers.

TIP

If your image has large tears you don't want to fix this way, use the Clone Brush .




Sams Teach Yourself Creating Web Pages All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Creating Web Pages All in One
ISBN: 0672326906
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 276

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