Once in a while, we take that almost-perfect picture. Almost perfect because there may be that one thing standing out in the photo that ruins the image completely.
With a few simple steps, you can fix those problems and touch up a photo enough to make an average one look great.
The following is a photo that was taken for a real estate brochure. It's a nice pool, but the pool-cleaning pipe detracts from the aesthetics. I would like to remove that pipe altogether; let's see how we can do it using the tools we've learned about in this chapter.
Let us now follow some simple steps to do this.
Pool image before
Just remember, photo retouching is akin to digital painting in some regard. Sometimes it's easier, and other times you can make the "fixed" area look worse than what you were trying to cover up. Like anything, it's all luck. The more you do it, the luckier you will get.
For this you are going to use the Clone Stamp tool. As we learned in Chapter 2, The Paint.NET Workspace, the Clone Stamp tool replaces pixels from one part of your image onto another:
Pool image afterward
- Select the Clone Stamp tool.
- Select an area on your image that is most similar to the area behind the one you want to get rid of.
- The area you select will appear as a circle with a plus symbol in the center. To the top-right corner of the plus symbol, you will see a small square. Press the Ctrl button and hold it down. The small square will turn into an anchor icon, meaning that this area is now anchored to the area we want to remove.
- Left-click on your mouse and it will lock that section in.
- Change the brush size. Experiment with the size that works best. Generally, you would want to use a smaller brush size to begin with.
- Now select the portion of the photo you wish to remove.
- You will notice that the place you anchored will be represented by a pulsing circle that will be the size of the brush you selected.
- Left-click and start painting. You will notice that as you move your mouse, the anchored circle will move as well. This represents the cloned area the pixels are taken from.
- If the area you are cloning appears too obvious, select a new area to anchor and continue the process. You may have to repeat this process several times if the area you want to remove is quite large or has lots of different shaded areas.
Pool image with hose removed using the Clone Stamp tool
With images, it's the details that make all the difference, especially when it comes to faces. A small blemish on someone's face is all it takes to destroy an impactful image. The same technique used for removing objects in a photo can be used to remove simple blemishes and scars. However, something to keep in mind is that human skin is a bit different. It has small and subtle nuances because of the way shadows and light play on the pores.