Ok, here is the pic I want to modify. This is a low res, small version. This is a tip I could use in lots of pics. You can see that I was messing with the Clone Tool and the one person in the background is now floating . I'm wondering if there is a more user friendly way to do this.

TIA.



Marie

Marie,

What were you trying to accomplish? Do you have the original - before you did any editing.

I've done quite a bit of photo editing. If you want, you are welcome to send me the original and tell me what you are trying to accomplish. Then I will see what I can do and put together a little tutorial on how to do it for you.

Laraine

http://www.brianandcharlie.com/blog
^Alexandra^, Brian, Charlie 07/28/2003
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I finally read the post on the main forum.

If you want to get the people out of the background in this photo, the only way I can think of is to clone them out. This background is so busy that I can't think of any other option.

However, if you can do layers in Elements, that can make it a little easier. I did a super quick edit to give you an example.

I created 2 duplicate layers. On the bottom layer I cloned out the people as best as I could. Then I slightly blurred the entire layer. This serves to hide the imperfections from the cloning. On the top layer I created a layer mask and then used that to let the background from the bottom layer show through.

Like I said this is a really quick edit. It would look a whole lot better if done on the original and taken a little more time.

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http://www.brianandcharlie.com/blog
^Alexandra^, Brian, Charlie 07/28/2003
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I had a little more time to play tonight. Here is a slightly better edit. On the original photo you could probably do it with minimal blurring in the background.

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http://www.brianandcharlie.com/blog
^Alexandra^, Brian, Charlie 07/28/2003
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So Laraine, did you just use the Clone tool? I can send you the original but I'm trying to understand what you did. I didn't think about blurring the background either. The trees make the cloning kind of a pain but I was thinking that was prob how I would have to do it. Hmmmm, I might even try to copy/paste the last tree with a trunk and make it look like the one behind also has a trunk - what do you think?

Thanks for doing this, sorry I haven't checked back til today.

Marie

Marie - I did use the clone tool. Its worth trying to copy the tree.

However, if you have the ability to use layers in elements then you may be able to skip the clone tool altogether (or only have to use it minimally) and get rid of the people using layer masks. You layer other parts of the background over the people you don't want in the photo.

It takes a little while to get used to using layers. Once you do though - it makes things so much easier.

Make sense?

http://www.brianandcharlie.com/blog
^Alexandra^, Brian, Charlie 07/28/2003
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Laraine,

I'm familiar with using layers - used to teach kitchen design CAD software. I've used layers in Elements too - but I'm not familiar with Masks, I'll see what I can figure out - I can tell you that I'm loving the Red Eye Correction in PE8 - been using PE2 for years and this feature is much improved.

Thank you so much for helping me with this!

Marie