removing a large area of the image

[mapgirl]

I was on a walkway at a marina where some otters were playing. Someone had attached a fish or something like it to the end of a rope. I held my camera in one hand and moved the rope around with the other until I felt a tug. This was the only decent shot. Unfortunately, a good deal of the walkway is in the lower left of the frame. But I don't want to crop out any of the otter. It seems too big an area to clone. Any ideas?



Camera: Canon Rebel XTi
Shutter Speed: 1/400
F-stop: f/5.6
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 85mm
no flash

[RexK_Cozumel]

Go out there and get a better shot..... You could spend hours and hours in photoshop trying to recreate the scene but why bother?

[jujitsu1]

I hope you dont mind but I had a go at editing ur image for you and this is my result

[mapgirl]

jujitsu1, I don't mind at all. That's great! I've been scrolling back and forth, trying to figure out what you did. I see an extra piece of wood or bamboo or something at the top. Did you reorient the image and then do some cloning? I'm just guessing now. So what did you do?

[jujitsu1]

No worries ....Happy to help..

First of all I used the cropping tool to put a crop around the photo. I then rotated it so it was diaginal and level with the egde of the path. then cropped it.

Secondly after cropping I used the clone tool to remove the black egdes the the crop tool left in the coners. That is why theres an extra piece of bamboo in the top right hand side.

Thirdly I cloned the water at the bottom left to get rid of a piece of black outline the crop tool left.

It was all done in Photoshop CS 4

[mapgirl]

Originally Posted by jujitsu1

No worries ....Happy to help..

First of all I used the cropping tool to put a crop around the photo. I then rotated it so it was diaginal and level with the egde of the path. then cropped it.

Secondly after cropping I used the clone tool to remove the black egdes the the crop tool left in the coners. That is why theres an extra piece of bamboo in the top right hand side.

Thirdly I cloned the water at the bottom left to get rid of a piece of black outline the crop tool left.

It was all done in Photoshop CS 4

Thank you! This is so helpful. I have Photoshop Elements 7, but it sounds like it's all doable there as well. I'm off to practice.

[jujitsu1]

If I can do it then I'm sure you can...It should be just as easy in cs 7

[Trader]

Here is another option for you to try and this was quite quick and easy:

1.) Sample the color of the water and paint the concrete that color. That leaves a flat fake looking color.
2.) Copy a patch of water with the bubbles. Ctl-T and rotate to fit in the corner. Paste in place.
3.) Airbrush a little white on that piece of fish to eliminate the straight line. And your done.

You could spend some more time adding bubbles and water surface to cover up some of that other parts but you should get the idea.

[mapgirl]

Thanks Trader! That's great. I posted this image, not because I think it's a particularly good shot, but because it presented a problem I didn't know how to solve. So your and jujitsu1's responses are perfect, exactly what I needed. Thank you!

[Trader]

It is a cute shot. You would think the little otter is looking directly into the camera. It always helps to get another opinion on how to fix a problem in Photoshop. There never does seem to be a right or wrong way, just an alternative.