Tech bytes for tea?

Yesterday, I showed how Photoshop CS5’s new Content-Aware Fill can be applied using the Spot Healing brush. The second way of using the powerful feature is to use the Content-Aware option when applying the Fill command.

I took the photo of two local boys at the Spanish beach at Altea, just 10 km to the north of the famous beach haven of Benidorm on the Costa Blanca. I like the way these two boys added life to the beach scene. But just to test out the Content-Aware Fill, I decided to “remove” them from the photo.

Quick and dirty selection around the two boys using the Lasso tool

Using the Lasso tool, I did a quick and dirty selection around the two boys. I held down the Shift key while making the second separate selection around the second boy. Press Shift-F5 (or choose Edit > Fill from the main menu) to activate the Fill dialog box. Choose “Content-Aware” from the “Use” drop-down box and press OK.

The two boys were magically removed!

I know my jaw dropped when Photoshop product manager Zorana Gee first demonstrated the feature to me in early Mar this year, a month prior to the official launch of the software. But to see it work on one of my own photos was quite exhilarating. Especially since it was a photo which had a highly complex background comprising pebbles, sea water, foam and parts of a rocky cliff. Something that would have taken hours previously was now automated and completed in mere seconds!

Amazing.