Taking large objects out of photographs (with pictures!)

I took the most awesome picture of the ancient dilapidated about-to-fall-to-bits-into-the-river Stillwater Lift Bridge this morning. (my one regret is, the sky didn't turn that lovely mix until well after the bridge's interior lights went out, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Those interior lights would have made this picture even better, but as it stands I won't complain too much... just dream and hope I'll get another chance come late autumn and the clouds are in that formation and the lighting timer mechanism fails and Dubhya* hasn't killed us all yet...)

One small problem though; next to a support strut there's this big-ass rich-looking neo-con boat that's otherwise ruining an award-winning progressive's picture! :evilgrin:

I had taken nearly an hour to fairly convincingly remove the darn thing (and if you concentrate at just the right spot, you can still see where, but fortunately it still blends in enough, though I'll fix the master image again anyway...), but I'm wondering if any of you Photoshoppers have any tips or tricks that would improve on this tedious task? (as my next goal is to take out those car headlights at the far left, damn drivers... :D )

Thanks much! :loveya:

Here's the pic:

Is snap two pictures from the same perspective, one with the boat (or other moving object) at point "A," the second with the boat at point "B". Then simply blend the two pictures. TADA! No boat!

The rest of what can be done depends on your software and your skill.

What you've done here looks pretty darn good. The headlights dont distract, I don't think, but you can easily remove them with the photoshop cloning tool (but I be you already knew that :-))

They don't detract from the pic at all, but lend more interest. First I see the sunset, then the stark contrast of the bridge... and only then is my eye pulled in toward the headlights.

They add perspective, plus human interest (so where is this person going, all alone on a bridge?).

I think they're an excellent focal point.

The only thing I would do is increase contrast just a tad between the bridge and the hills behind it -- but that's just me.

Otherwise, great composition -- and nice "de-boating" job!

Do you shoot competitively? (Just curious -- my parents were longtime camera-clubbers, with a roomful of trophies and ribbons and stuff. And Mom still judges.)

(Yeah, photographer & Photoshopper here -- but not half as skilled as my folks.)

The weak point is the bridge 'blending in' with the hills, but that couldn't be helped. :-( If they had the lights in the bridge turned on, it would have looked better. They turned off those particular lights some 20 minutes before I snapped that one.

When printed out, it's much easier to see the difference, the bridge is nearly black and the hills are greyer - fortunately! :D My 30 minutes of adjusting brightness without washinging out the whole pic worked. But I agree, having a better contrast would have been better - or even the internal lighting which I'll try not to mention anymore! :D Still, the pic is fairly good as it is and I'm sure I get can get a few $$$ from interested buyers... But they left on the external light (that lens flare BTW is natural, not a computer effect or lens attachment!) so why not the interior ones? Waaah!

Someday I'll probably do photography competitively. I still need to get used to my cameras and the concepts, I'd taken 30 shots - I instantly threw out half because I'd set the shutter speed to be too slow and I couldn't compensate the bridge from the hills. (I was testing numerous settings and that LCD screen has a knack of making dark images look brighter than they are; my earliest two pics this morning were darker than I thought. :-( Still, the LCD is better than no preview at all...)

...Mr. Award-Winning Nature Photographer, who once spent six hours trying to coax a photogenic pose out of two uncooperative salamanders who had better things to do that day, always used to say: "If you get one good shot out of 300, you're doing GREAT." :)

You probably will get some $$$ -- you're good! I look forward to you posting more of your work.

Now, stop tempting me to ask you all about your equipment, whether you plan to build a darkroom, if you've ever worked in black and white, etc., etc. I could get into this conversation all day! :)

On edit:

Oh, btw -- you might want to look into a camera club even if you're not 100% comfortable with everything. That's what's so wonderful about camera clubs -- people are VERY happy to dispense priceless tips, tricks, & information. A good club will have workshops, field trips... and the comraderie & networking are invaluable.

Competition is a great way to get impartial feedback, and it's a learning experience in itself to just listen to a good judge critique others' work, too. And I haven't met a really cruel judge yet. LOL

I entered my first competition when I was just a kid, and was shocked and amazed they actually liked my stuff! It was a great confidence builder.

As a kid, I once caught one and tried to keep it as a pet in a shoebox. The first night, my pet crawled out of the box and I awoke with him crawling on my neck in the middle of the night.

I never had an urge to domesticate wild animals ever again.

Note: I liked the bridge shot too. The colors were spectacular. It didn't look Photoshopped at all. I really couldn't spot the boat, and I looked for it.

I used b&w film and leaned how to process it. I loved replacing the red light bulbs, but these days I use red light bulbs for something far more interesting, even though I do that much less often... :evilgrin:

These days I'm 95% digital. Except for fireworks, mind you... But film images are too soft, despite having a higher resolution than film. I still prefer film for fireworks where I think a digital camera's sharpness would be a downside; everything would look pixelated... (the sunrise pic above was taken on a digital, though I think the autofocus was a bit off. I should have set it to manual and go with infinity...)

If I do make enough dough, I intend to get a digital SLR with a nice zoom lens... 3x optical is zilch, especially since my camera's predecessor had something like 10x zoom. But given 10x zoom or 5 megapixels, I'd take 5 megapixels any day.

Though my digital camera right now has every other function I'd want (manual zoom, manual shutter speed, manual f-stop, manual everything. Just no decent manual to go with it!), SLRs are the way to go.

If it's that hard to find, it means you did a terrific job. Great work! :)

See the middle strut, where the light is shining on the left? Look just to the right of the right side of the strut.

Look carefully at the shadow below. I forgot to erase that pole that can be seen in the shadow. (I've corrected that since and smoothed some of the blocky edges concealing the boat...)

Thx for the compliment (and to all!)