Lightroom 5, Spot Removal Tool (Not a Healing Brush!)

One of the tools I do use regularly got a makeover in LightRoom 5 and is one of the bits that there has been a fair amount of noise about.  The spot removal tool was great for, well, spots. You could also creatively use it in other ways, but to be honest it was a bit limited as it only worked by placing a circle over the thing you wanted to remove, so if you wanted to remove something that was long and thin, you'd have to put a big circle over it and then have LR work its magic, which did not often give great results.

In LR 5 you can now "paint over" the long and thin (or really any irregular shaped) things you wish to remove and Lightroom will do much better.  I've heard this feature described as being akin to CS6's healing features but sadly it really isn't, it IS much better and will mean in some cases you won't need to go to CS6, but its not the same and its not as good (in my opinion).

Original image and blemish removal comparison in CS6 and Lightroom 5.

Take this image for example, top left is the original, and there's a nasty branch covering the bird on the left.

Top right, shows the branch "painted" in with the CS6 Healing brush, and the image below it shows the result.  Pretty good.

Bottom left shows the new Spot Removal Tools' attempt at the same thing.  Because it samples from a nearby location it has carried across bits of the branch and the birds leg, which means more cleaning up.

So its a great addition to Lightroom and improves the tool a lot, but a Healing brush it isn't.

Peter.

Part of the furniture

The set subject for the St Neots & District Camera Club December competition is "Street Furniture". 

Not for me the most stimulating topic!

So I thought I'd try a little social commentary, by getting a model to pose as a young homeless person in the doorway of a closed down shop.  The idea being that the homeless simply fade into the background of our consciousness and become "part of the furniture" around us.

The problems began when my model refused to pose at the site I'd chosen "in case any of his mates saw him".  So I had to set it up in our back yard and then cut him out in photoshop, and composite him onto a layer of the shopfront.

I've been reading a book by Matt Kloskowski called "Photoshop Compositing Secrets" and I tried to use some of that new knowledge both in taking the two images (one of Matts' first tips  is how to take the images to help later compositing) and in the compositing process.

After the compositing, in post processing, I went for a grungy, grainy feel that tries to add a bit more to the desolation feel and I also tried to make it so the person is not the first thing your eye settles on but by having to look for him it should reinforce the "part of the furniture" feel. 

I chose this particular shopfront as it has a nice brick frame to hold things together.  The only real problem I have with the picture is that I couldn't get the person "on a third" which will probably lose me marks straight away.

Have to see how the judge takes it.  But what do you think?

Should you tell?

I had the idea for a picture of my dog George sitting in autumn leaves, and as he's from a shooting background, a dead Pheasant on the Ground in front of him.  Lots of autumnal browns and yellows, and a brown dog as well as the plumage of the Pheasant.

But the chances of getting George to sit still on his own, let alone with a Pheasant just in front of him was pretty remote, so I had to resort to other tactics.

I ended up shooting a background of leaves at a local park, and using OnOne softwares excellent Focal Point 2 (onone software) to provide a realistic focus blur to it.

That evening I set up a couple of Studio Flash stands with softboxes, a table full of collected leaves, and the dog sat in the middle.  The following night I did the same with a Pheasant my wife had obtained from a local farmer.

Then it was a task to cut out the dog and Pheasant in Photoshop, assemble the lot and colour balance the various parts (see below).

Now I quite like the final image, BUT it has polarised opinion once I've revealed how it was made, with one individual claiming "oh thats fantastic" before I told them, and "I don't like it now" once I'd let on.

Its as though the magic was gone for him because I had invented a reality rather than captured it, and somehow this was wrong.

Which poses the question, if you've created an image like this should you tell people its not real?

My Flickr stream