Another "help me pick a program" thread

[Artrina]

I've decided it's time to get past some of the basic fixes Picasa does to my pix. I looked at the pix I took on a recent vacation and realize that I'd really like to get rid of some of the things in some of the pix. I started with what I thought would be fairly easy - taking peoples' legs out of a pix and replacing them with the cement that they're standing on. I've been working with GIMP - unsuccessfully. Can anyone recommend a program that can do this easier than GIMP? I'm willing to spend some money, not empty my bank account.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[tingeliM]

I'm not sure what you mean...you want to clone the legs out? Can you post an example photo`?

[teaking]

GIMP uses a lot of the standard editing tools that most other programs use eg clone, heal, brushes, blur, sharpen, etc etc I dont mean to sound rude but I cant think of another program with the same tools that is easier for what your trying to achieve.

Even photoshop uses these tools, all be it the menues and user interface are prettier

[Artrina]

You're not sounding rude. I guess I'm hoping to find a program that gives more direction than GIMP does.The most advanced program I've used is Picasa.

The pix I'm talking about is a pix that was taken at The Four Corners Monument in the Southwestern US. I have pix of 3 of the states that are fine, just show the state name and seal on cement. I guess I wasn't paying attention when I took the 4th state because there are several peoples' legs in it. I'd like to find a way to get their legs out of the pix so it matches the other 3 states.

The first pix is the original I'm trying to fix. The second pix is what I ended up with after about 3 hours of work.

Thanks for your help and patience!

[teaking]

Ah I see what you mean now

What you could try is to use the clone or healing tools you select a spot which has the part you want to clone or heal by pressing Ctlr and then selecting a fuzzy brush on a low opacity anywhere from 5-30% you paint over the area you want to replace.

There are other ways which involve using a second picture on a layer below and doing something similar cloning from the below layer but seen as you have one picture this may help.


Heres some youtube tutorials:

Healing
YouTube - Shave someone in GIMP- Clone & Healing tool (+spot removal) GIMP tutorial

Cloning
YouTube - Using Gimp's Clone Tool

Cloning two layers
YouTube - Gimp Tutorial - Clone Photomanipulation


Maybe you could try cropping the picture too to remove some of the affected area.