Not every terrible photo is salvageable, but every so often my human finds one that she thinks has “possibilities.” Case in point: the orange and white rescue kitten she photographed at some event a couple of years ago. Can you believe she actually thought this would make a good faux oil painting?
The photo is way too dark, it is out of focus, and once she cropped and lightened it, there were even more problems — the carpet the cat was on was a mess! Plus there was another cat’s foot in the corner. With a big object like that, it’s hard to erase it in Photoshop with the Clone Stamp or the Spot Healing Brush tool. But there is a quick way to get rid of these types of things. It’s as easy as surrounding it with the Lasso tool (its shortcut is L).
Once you have the marching ants around the offending object, go up to the Edit menu and click on the Fill command in the drop down menu.
Now, here is the important part. When the next window opens, you want to make sure to use the Content Aware option. It will fill in the area to match everything that surrounds it.
It works (most of the time), almost like magic!
My human cleaned up the rest of the photo with a combination of the Content-Aware Fill, Spot Healing Brush and Clone Stamp. Now it does not look half bad. This is what she refers to as “polishing a turd” (hence the title of this blog post). Then, she took the easy way out and filtered the photo through the AKVIS ArtWork software that she used for my Caturday Art post a couple of weeks ago. This time, she used the Oil Painting filter. And you know what? It does make a pretty cool oil painting!
For more Caturday Art, visit Athena!
See all of Summer’s merch at her Designercat Shop, available on Zazzle.
How clever is your humum!!
Your human did a great job on that photo. It looks lovely as an oil painting.
That is so pretty.
beautiful!!! <3
That looks like a very sweet kitty. I think I should be art
The artiness of adjusting the picture is great, but the subject deserves some credit too. Thats a lovely kitty!
Wowzers..that is pawsome!!
Great job!
Very cool. Will have to try out that program. I was looking for something like that when i created my Caturday art picture.
–Purrs (and woofs) from Life with Dogs and Cats.
Oh Sparkle!
Mes LOVES it! Your Mommy did a fabulishious job! It really does look like a old master.
Kisses
Nellie
Great job! That looks great 🙂
Pretty impressive!
Purrs,
The Chans
Mommy says she has plenty of poops to polish…she needs to get off her duff and do nice stuff like your Human!
It makes a very elegant oil painting…we love it!
Isn’t it funny how we use different tools in the same program to achieve the same effects? I rarely use Content Aware – and want to try it out now. Healing brush? check. Clone? Yep – often in partial flow and opacity to create a more authentic look.
This is one of the first Photoshop tricks the head peep hasn’t been able to follow along with in Elements. That content-aware fill is a really nice feature!
looks like a portrait! Love it!
Wow. Beautiful. We are in awe of your Human’s Photoshop skills and knowledge.
I always learn good stuff here. I should here TW pay your human, Sparkle. Actually, we just started using the lasso and fill stuff but didn’t know about the Contents award setting. For my Irish Cream, TW sampled the green on the label and filled with that color. For someone who never used PS, I think she’s doing pretty good.
Not just a pretty cool oil painting, a fabulous one! It really was a great pic even when it was dark. The kitty’s face (head) is so perfectly captured – amazingly so. That Photoshop is a very nifty program!
Very good tutorial and excellent salvage on a picture you though was a t**D! 🙂
We like the result and Mom likes your Saturday tips.
She is lazy about learning all the tricks her program can do.
Your posts inspire her to learn a bit more and have fun.
We like that as she is not taking pics of us 😉 heehee
Purrs Georgia and Julie,
Treasure, JJ
and Angels Tiger and Tillie
Oh WOW! Your mom is very talented. Great job!
That really is magical Sparkle!!!
Your human was right. It looks great!
Purrs xx
Athena and Marie
Bravo what a wonderful arty Caturday! Your human has a very creative eye
Hugs
Madi your BFFF
IT does indeed, Sparkle.
That is great stuff. Very interesting. I might have to try this trick. Sounds like something I might be able to do. Have a great day.
Wow! You mommy did some great work!