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| Sisters.jpg |
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| Sisters2.jpg |
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| Dinner.jpg |
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| Dinner2.jpg |
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| Dinner3.jpg |
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| Alby (select) and Alby2. Click to zoom |
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| Want a Photo Filtre photo retouching topic discussed? Write alby at alby{at}myscrapworks.com or post her your question at the Forum! |
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Sisters.jpg - Original Photo: My mom (Vangie) and aunt (Nora), taken at the Taal Vista Lodge last July.
Sisters2.jpg - How to?
- Click the clone stamp tool (the small icon in the headline of this article is the clone tool). Set opacity to 70 and radius to 10.
- Take the cursor to the area you want to clone or copy. In this case, just take the cursor in the grassy area to the right of the guy holding a camera. (See Sisters.jpg) Hold the control key while left-clicking the mouse. This sets the area you want to copy.
- Release the control key. Then drag the mouse around the area you want to “erase”. You will notice two plus (+) signs. One to the right side – the area you are copying, and another one at the left side - the area you are “erasing”. Do this by holding the left mouse button and slowly dragging the cursor (marked by a plus sign) on the man holding the camera. You will notice that as you drag the left plus sign, you are copying the area covered by the right plus sign. In short, you are merely duplicating the patches of grass to cover the unwanted elements of the picture.
- Do this one small area at a time. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you've erased the entire family at the background.
Cool! Now, you might think you won't always encounter annoying strangers in your photos. True. However, more often than not, you may come across certain elements in your photo that you want to take out as well. In the next example, (Dinner.jpg) the flash is reflected at the wall behind the subjects which is not only distracting, but is actually downright ugly. I want to remove the reflection for a cleaner look.
Dinner.jpg - Original Photo: Dinner in Singapore with former colleagues (l-r) Teena, Gracie, Joyce, Carla and moi!
Dinner2.jpg - How to?
- Click the clone stamp tool . Set opacity to 70 and radius to 10.
- Take the cursor to the area you want to clone or copy. In this case, just take the cursor on the area to the left of the reflection. Hold the control key while left-clicking the mouse. Again, this sets the area you want to copy.
- Release the control key. Then drag the mouse around the area you want to “erase”.
- As with the Sisters.jpg photo, do this one small area at a time. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you've erased the entire reflection at the background. (See Dinner2.jpg)
- I finished off by decreasing the color saturation to minimize the shine on our faces. Click the Saturation (-) icon two times (it's the yellow-red-green-blue cube with a minus sign) at the top panel. (See Dinner3.jpg)
For the final exercise, I've chosen a closeup picture of myself. I wanted to erase some blemishes. In figure 5, I've encircled specific areas that I will retouch using the clone stamp tool. Following the same steps as in the first two examples, I've erased the blemishes on the face (See Alby2.jpg). Note that I didn't erase the moles. Those are identification marks which I feel should not be altered.
Alby (select).jpg - Original Photo: Shot taken in January 2006 during one of our trekking/swimming trips out of town.
Alby2.jpg - How to?
- Click the clone stamp tool . Set opacity to 70 and radius to 5. With the smaller areas to cover, a smaller radius is recommended.
- Take the cursor to the area you want to clone or copy. In this case, just take the cursor on the area a few millimiters from the blemish to be erased. Hold the control key while left-clicking the mouse. Again, this sets the area you want to copy.
- Release the control key. Then drag the mouse around the area you want to “erase”.
- As with the first two examples, do this one small area at a time. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you've erased the entire reflection at the background.
Now, do you see why I am thankful for Photo Filtre? Just imagine the possibilities with the Clone Stamp Tool alone. If you haven't installed Photo Filtre yet, now's the time to do so. Just follow the instructions for downloading the software at the end of this article. Don't be afraid to experiment (make sure you save the picture under a different file name first, save the original and work on the copy). Follow my lead and learn the ropes of Photo Filtre one tool at a time.
If you have questions or if you need some help in understanding how Photo Filtre works, register at the forum and post your concerns at the Photo Rx section. I'll do my best to address your concerns. Have fun!
- To download the zipped PhotoFiltre software, click here.
- To download the English Help File of PhotoFiltre (Acrobat format), click here.
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