The Patch Tool in Photoshop has a lot in common
with Content-Aware Fill and the Healing Brush.
Let's see how we might use this tool
to remove one of the horses in the background.
I'm gonna start off by making a copy of the background layer
by choosing Command + J on the Mac, or Control + J on Windows.
This is just so that I can keep the retouching
from the Patch Tool on a separate layer.
Working with the Patch Tool always starts
with the selection of the area that you want to patch.
You can use any of the Selection Tools to create this
or you can also use the Patch Tool itself as a lasso
for the first step.
Let's come over here to the Tool Bar
and choose the Patch Tool.
And, what I'm gonna do is drag a loose lasso selection
with the Patch Tool around this horse
in the center background.
Up in the Options bar for the Patch Tool
I have two different methods that I could use.
Normal or Content-Aware.
I'm gonna leave this set to Normal for now
and in Normal mode you can choose to patch either
the Source or the Destination.
Let's start off with the Destination.
What the Destination refers to,
is where you drag the selected pixels.
So, essentially it's gonna make a copy of these pixels
and blend them in wherever you choose to move them.
Let's drag this horse over to the right side here,
and you can see that it's created a very convincing blend
of moving that horse over there.
I'm gonna undo that by choosing Command + Z
or Control + Z on Windows.
Now, let's set this to Source.
What the Source is referring to, is what we started with.
This selection here.
To create the patch, you drag this selection over
to an area that has good detail.
Let me drag it over here to the same area
just 'cause I have a lot of background detail over there.
And, something like that looks pretty good.
That's not working as well as I would hope.
Mainly because there are some differences
in the background that aren't lining up
and there's also some differences to the clarity
of the details in the background and the brightness
in the contrast of that area.
And that's because these two horses,
which are having an obvious disagreement,
are kicking up quite a lot of dust in the area here between them
and that dust is obscuring the details in the background.
It's also effecting the contrast and the brightness.
Because of that, this area over here on the right
is not really working as well as I would hope,
to create a good patch.
Again, let me undo that.
I think I need to approach this in a different way.
I'm gonna get rid of that selection.
What I'm gonna do is use this detail
between the dark brown horse and the lighter horse in the background,
as the patch.
But, I don't have enough room here to create the patch
in one step so I have to break it up into two steps.
Let me make a selection of the back half of the horse.
I think I'm gonna change the patch method to Content-Aware.
I think that's gonna do a little bit better job.
Let me drag this over here,
and I'm gonna make sure I line up the band of grasses there.
Yeah, that's definitely working.
Let's make another selection of the front half of the horse
and drag it in the same place.
Again, I'm gonna make sure
I line up that band of grasses there.
Alright, that's definitely something I can work with.
However, since I was copying the same bit of detail twice,
I do have some repeating elements showing up.
I'm gonna fix those with the Clone Stamp Tool.
We'll Option or ALT click to sample areas
that I can then brush over and just obscure the fact
that we do have these repeating details here
in the background.
Even these toughs of grass need to be adjusted a little bit.
It's always good to cast a discerning eye
on the area that you have been retouching,
just to make sure that you don't have any areas
where there are obvious repeating details.
Alright, I think if that's gonna work pretty well,
let's turn that Retouching Layer off and on there
by clicking on it's Eye icon.
Of the seven retouching tools in Photoshop that you can use
for removing objects from an image,
which one you use will depend on the specific details
in the image and the capabilities of the tool.
As we saw in this project,
using the Patch Tool and the Clone Stamp,
sometimes the best approach may be
to use multiple retouching tools.