Covering Unwanted Elements

If there are just one or two annoying things that are messing up your otherwise lovely photo, here's a quick way to get rid of them, while maintaining maximum texture and authenticity. (Because you're using another part of the photo to cover what you don't want visible, the grain, texture, and welleverythingis right on the money.)

Step One

In this example, we have a charming "old-world" door, but the plastic "16" house number pulls the charming "old-world" feel right out of the photo. So... the plastic numbers have to go. I could use the Patch tool (it's isolated, right?) or the Clone Stamp tool, but this method makes the removal perfect because you're actually going to cover the "16" with a chunk of the wall above it, which is an even more realistic fix and is as fast as, if not faster than, the alternatives.

Step Two

Press Z to get the Zoom tool and zoom in on the area with the offensive plastic numbers. (I bet they got those at Euro-Home Depot.)

Step Three

Press M to get the Rectangular Marquee tool, and drag out a selection around the "16." Then, click in the selection and drag it straight above the number, sliding right up the wall. Now, you'll need to put a feather on your selection so the edges will be soft and blend in perfectly, hiding the fact that you did anything to the photo at all. So, go under the Select menu and choose Feather. When the Feather Selection dialog appears, enter 1-3 pixels (depending on your percentage of zoom) for the Feather Radius and click OK.

Step Four

Now, holding the Option and Command (PC: Alt and Control) keys, drag the selected area straight down. This makes a copy of the selected area, so you're really dragging along a copy of the rectangular chunk of the wall. That area fits perfectly over the plastic numbers (it fits perfectly because you first created that selection by dragging it over the numbers, remember?). By the way, you won't see any harsh edges to give you away because you feathered those edges in the previous step.

Step Five

Now, when you press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect, the numbers will be gone, and your removal will be right on the money. Here's a before and after. You can see what a difference removing that one little area made. I probably would go one step further and zoom in on the center of the red door. Then, using the same technique, I'd remove the letter "A" and peephole from the top center of the door. (That way, I'm removing any hint of the possibility of "old-world" crime that peepholes suggest.)

Before

After

Step Six

Here's another application of the same technique. On the left side of the photo there's a distracting doorjamb, and the easiest fix (without re-cropping and shrinking the width of the photo) is to extend the wall to cover the door-jamb. Get the Rectangular Marquee tool, and draw a tall, thin rectangular selection from the top to the bottom, and then feather your selection (under the Select menu).

Step Seven

Hold Option-Command (PC: Alt-Control) and the Shift key (to keep it perfectly in line as you drag), and drag the selected area of the wall to the left. You'll have to drag several copies of the thin wall selection to cover the door-jamb. Also, if you see any repeating pattern when you're done, just get the Patch tool (Shift-J), draw a selection around that area, drag the selection into a clean area, and then press Command-D (PC: Control-D) to deselect.