Tech bytes for tea?

The most hyped feature in Photoshop CS5 is the Content-Aware Fill. The feature enables you to remove an object in your photo and see it automatically replaced with pixels that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area so that it looks like the removed object never existed. Previously, you would have to painstakingly use the Clone Stamp tool to manually copy pixels from surrounding areas to replace the unwanted object.

There are two ways to use Content-Aware Fill. The first is to paint with the Spot Healing Brush (which I will demo today) while the other is as an option of the Fill command to replace content in an active selection.

The Spot Healing brush is useful for removing skin blemishes like pimples and moles where Photoshop will clone texture from adjacent areas and paint it onto the blemish. A soft edge is automatically used so that the area with the removed blemish merges seamlessly with the surroundings.

In areas where there are sharp details like lines and curve – such as the edge of roofs and windows etc – using the traditional Spot Healing brush results in blurred smudges where the removed wires/cables were.

The Spot Healing brush now comes with a Content-Aware option, in addition to the exiting Proximity Match and Create Texture options.

Options for the Spot Healing brush

Choose a brush size slightly bigger than the width of the wire/cable to be removed and drag over the wire/cable. Where the wire/cable runs across a straight edge, the edge will be extended to take the place of the removed wire/cable.

The original photo above is a photo I took of the charming facade of a traditional shophouse in the Japanese city of Kurashiki. Unfortunately there was an unsightly clothes-line running across the front.

Blurred mess left by Spot Healing brush with Proximity Match Option

Painting the Spot Healing Brush over the clothes-line with the traditional Proximity Match option selected removed the line, but resulted in an unsightly blurred mess in its place.

Selecting the Content-Aware option for the Spot Healing Brush, painting over the line did a good job removing the clothes-line and extended the straight slats behind the line to take the place of the clothes-line. See the After photo above.

There are still some traces but it’s 95% of the job done – only some minor touch-ups to tie up the loose end.

It’s a great time-saver!