- Bonjour madames y monseure.
In this episode, I wanna talk to you
how you can erase a complex element
in your photo after using Photoshop.
If you don't know how to erase complex elements
in your photo, you could be missing out a lot on something.
You could have an amazing photo like this photo that I have
and have this car that just totally ruins the photo
and then you never get the exposure, or the likes,
or the effects you want to create.
If you stay until the end,
I'm going to show you my workflow
on how to erase complex subject
that the content-awareness field
does not handle properly
and what can you do?
(mystical music)
So I have this photo and check this out.
I just love the mood of the photo.
This is the Maison Rose in Montmartre
and just the beautiful street of Montmartre.
I love the lights here
and I was thinking about crop,
I actually already cropped the photo,
and I was going to crop it even more
cause I wanted to get rid of the car.
But here's the problem,
by cropping it even more,
if I take the car out,
you see, oh that was the original crop.
If I take the car completely out,
I'm cutting out this and I'm cutting out this
and I want this to be in full.
I want something like that, like.
Yeah and I don't want to crop this.
So, I want something like this.
So, how to get rid of this complex car?
Well the method I'm gonna show you
is something I've completely invented.
I'm sure there's better methods out there.
If you know one, leave me a comment.
I'm always willing to learn.
I learn and I share and that's the way I rock.
I make two videos per week.
Please give it a like if you can
and share this video and subscribe
to my channel if you didn't subscribe.
And let me show you how I do it.
It's a little bit of complex,
it's not so much a beginner tutorial
but I'm going to try to make it as easy as possible for you.
So the first thing that I do
is I duplicate my original layer
so that I'm not working on the original layer
and so that we can compare things.
And basically the problem is that
if I go here and I select this whole car here
and these two people and I go into
Edit, Content-Aware Fill
you see, no matter what I do,
look at this. I'm going to get a weird result
like I'm getting things like
I don't even know what to tell the software
to copy and paste there because there's nothing
to copy and paste there.
So I'm actually gonna do it so you can see the difference.
So that's what Photoshop could do
and I'm gonna show you how I'm gonna do it.
So the way I do it is I actually create textures.
Take a texture from one side of the photo
and I put it over what's missing.
So I'm gonna start out by the sidewalk here
and I want to take this texture here
and put it over there and to cover the car.
So for this, what I do is, I take the
I press P for the pen tool
and the pen tool is really easy to use.
I click here cause I don't wanna have this
well actually we could use it, we'll correct this.
Command-Z to undo.
I'm goonna click here one time.
And I'm gonna make a selection here,
selection there,
here,
and here, okay?
So now I made a, it's not a selection line,
it's just a path. We call that a path.
But if I right-click on the path
and I can make a selection
and this one I'm gonna make it
I'm gonna give it five pixel of feather.
Now that's very important for this
because it's gonna make it a little bit blurry.
So five pixel.
And so now I have a selection of the sidewalk
which is a little bit feathers of five pixel.
And now I'm gonna press Command-J on my keyboard.
So what Command-J did
and if I hold on the Option key and click on the eyes
It's going to put this on its own layer
and you can see here it's very feathered.
Okay and if I hold on the Option key and I click on the eyes
everything comes back to normal.
Now I'm going to take the Move tool
and I'm just gonna move this to the right, you see?
And I'm going to place it
to where I think the sidewalk is gonna go.
So I press Command-T
if I need to I can even rotate it a little bit
because I believe it's gonna go this way
and that's not all.
Now I'm gonna press the Option key on my keyboard
and click and drag this texture again.
Okay now that I've got these two textures here,
I can select them, right-click, merge layer,
and that's gonna merge them into one.
I can call this "Side walk".
Now it looks weird at first but it's not finished.
What I can do now is
I can use the Stamp tool, I press S for Stamp Tool
and any tool in Photoshop if you press Control and Alt key
and click and drag you can make your Stamp tool
bigger or smaller.
It works with everything.
And now, you see, I want to get rid of this weird texture
so I can press the Alt key and I can just brush here
and oh, I'm gonna undo that.
So one thing you need to make sure, which I didn't do,
is you need to make sure the Hardness is at zero.
You want your Stamp tool to be very feathered, very smooth.
Okay let's do it again.
So the way the Stamp tool works is you press Alt
and then you see a preview what you are doing
and then you just brush here.
So I'm copying this texture here and maybe this one here
and I'm just trying to correct the issue
and what you can do is you press and drag, press and drag
and sometimes you're gonna get like repeating patterns,
that's okay. We can correct that later.
I can take this one and click here.
And you know, the sidewalks in Paris are so random anyway
that it's gonna kind of look cool.
So look at this, before and after.
We put the sidewalk back there
and if you look at it from far, it's pretty cool.
Usually I would spend more time on it
with the Stamp tool to make sure that it's perfect
but I don't want this tutorial to take two hours.
So far I'm already we're off to good start.
Now comes the tricky part.
We have like a couple there behind a lamp
and there's a car.
So the first thing is, is I wanna copy this texture here
down all the way to the sidewalk.
So for this I'm gonna go back on the original layer
and, same technique, I'm gonna P for Pen tool
and I'm gonna take, I'm gonna go here, click here,
click here,
here,
and this time because it's a very finite line,
I'm not gonna make a selection of five but of one.
And I'm gonna press Command-J to put this on its own layer
Take the Move tool, with the V is Move tool,
or you can click here for the Move tool.
And I'm gonna click and drag this here.
And you wanna make sure that sidewalk is on top of this.
so I'm gonna put this because then as I go down,
it's gonna go behind the person.
Now we can see something is weird there
and the color and the luminosity don't match.
But that's fine, first I'm gonna press Command-T
Which Command-T is the Free Transform tool,
the most used tool in Photoshop.
So I'm gonna right-click here, go to Perspective,
and I'm gonna slide this up, slide this up a little bit
and by going to Perspective, I can make this,
yeah, slide this up, I wanna make this match here
a little bit, like that
and maybe make it a little bit longer.
Oops.
Right-click, you can go back to scale, make it a bit longer,
a bit more scale, something like this
and it doesn't really match because the colors don't match
but I'll show you a magic trick.
We're going to use the Levels to make this match.
So I'm gonna press Command-L and by going here,
Command-L just opens the layer on this one thing
and all you need to understand is play around
with this middle slider here.
Look at this, if I go on the right,
I'm matching the same luminosity.
On the left it's too bright, on the right I'm matching it.
And you need to go a little bit darker
because the light was going darker as it was going down.
Something like this. Okay. I love this.
And now, I'm going to hold on the Option key like I did,
click and drag to make another one, Command-T,
right-click, Perspective and let's play around.
And you know, you don't need to be exact
because the structures in Paris are so weird anyway.
I don't think anybody's gonna notice.
I can make it a little slightly bigger there.
And again, you see the color needs to be adjusted.
So same thing, Command-L and move this to the right
a little bit.
Okay, cool. So now we've got these two things here.
I'm gonna right-click, Merge Layer,
and I'm gonna call this "white wall"
and I'm gonna show you, if I move out,
so now we've created the white wall, the side walk,
so we have the white wall and we have the side walk.
Okay but we still have a lot to go,
we still have this whole part here.
So we have the white wall and we have the side walk,
now what can we do about this couple here and the car?
Well, it's gonna be even more tricky.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this texture
and I'm gonna copy it all over here
and let's see if we can pull that off.
So, what I'm gonna do is, I'm just gonna go here,
take the Pen tool, take some kind of like blank
yeah, kind of like this part here to start with.
All I care about is the texture.
This time, I'm gonna go Make Selection... and one
Okay, make sure you're on the basic layer
when you do this, Command-J
and now I can move this using the Move tool
and I'm going to put this, where am I going to put this?
I want to hide, I want to hide this maybe.
Yeah, I want to hide this.
So, I'm gonna zoom in and again, Command-L,
check this out and I'm gonna make it match.
Ooo!
Make it match. Okay.
We can see there's still some stuff there
but already the matching really works well.
Okay, and now I'm gonna hold on the Option key
with the Move tool and I'm just gonna click and drag
one more here and because we have sidewalk that's on top,
that's kinda cool and same thing, Command-L
to make it darker, you have to make it darker
as it goes down.
Okay, we have some things but we'll take care of that after.
And then Command-Alt, I'm gonna put this here
on the side,
here,
Command-Alt,
here,
and Command-Alt, here.
So yes, we can see some things.
So all these layers, I'm gonna select them all,
press right-click, Merge Layer,
and I'm gonna call this "green wall".
Okay, and so we still have this part there
but okay so now to make this match,
what you can do is just use the Stamp tool
as we did before.
And you just take like some kind of the middle
of the texture here and you just, oops,
and make sure when you use the Stamp tool
that all layers is active so that everything,
you know, in case I wanna pick up some of that texture
and mix it, it's there.
And I can use the Stamp tool just to mix things together.
Oops, Command-Z if you do something weird
like I just did.
(clicking)
And voila, it's so cool.
It just blends everything.
Oops, again made a mistake there.
So.
(clicking)
and it works well because the Stamp tool is very feathered,
You see?
Okay and again, I would probably spend more time on it,
you know, but honestly, this is already pretty good.
It's looking good. We are reconstructing this part
of the photo.
Okay, last but not least, we still have that.
So, same idea, I'm gonna go back on the original layer,
I'm gonna, so I'll show you a really cool trick.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the Pen tool
and I'm going to follow just like
if there was this line here.
(clicking)
And I'm gonna follow that.
(clicking)
Okay.
Let's see if that can work.
And I'm gonna right-click, Make Selection... of one pixel.
Now, that selection is at the wrong place.
What I'm gonna do now is,
I'm actually gonna move that selection,
Select, Transform Selection, and I'm gonna move it
to the left here, on the clean wall.
Okay, and then, on the green wall,
because I'm taking it from the green wall,
I'm gonna press Command-J, and I'm gonna move this over
and it should sort of match perfectly what we were doing.
Okay, that's pretty good!
And I'm gonna right-click and merge these two layer
you know, as I, as I build this thing.
Okay, now it's looking, it's pretty good,
it's pretty good, it's pretty good.
I still have a few things to correct.
Like here, we can see the car, it's kinda weird.
So I'm just gonna take the Stamp tool
and I'm just gonna correct this with the Stamp tool.
And sort of rebuild.
You know, another thing you can do,
actually, another trick, actually what I did originally,
is I just took this part here
with the Pen tool
you know, even this with little things here,
and right-click, Make Selection...
Actually to a feather of zero.
Okay, you go on the original photo, Command-J
and then V to move it down.
Okay, so I'm basically copying the top here
and I can adjust it and I can make it a bit bigger
because it would be bigger in real life.
Okay, I have to move over here.
Yes, I have to move over the white wall
and over the green wall, which is,
that's the green wall, I believe.
All right, let's see, is that the green wall?
I'm gonna, press and hold.
Yeah, that's the green wall.
Okay, perfect. That's the white wall,
and that's where I am now.
Okay, cool.
So we call this the "lamp".
And Command-T and I'm just basically gonna
make it smaller here.
You can move it also using the arrows on the keyboard.
And I'm just reconstructing the lamp.
Look at this.
So now I'm gonna take everything
and merge everything with that layer.
Merge Layer, so all the corrections that we did
now is merged into one photo.
That's the before, that's the after.
Pretty good.
Now, to make it even better, we can see here
there's something weird.
So, on the image, I'm gonna take the Pen tool again
and I'm gonna make some kind of random selection here
where basically this is called ambient occlusion.
It's supposed to be a shadow here.
It's supposed to be like a very neat shadow
and I'm gonna go here, right-click, Make Selection...
Zero is fine.
Command-L and again I'm gonna go to the right,
I'm gonna darken this whole thing here.
Okay, Command-D.
Now, you see it's too, it's too bright,
so, I'm gonna,
basically,
right-click,
I went Command-Z, Command-Z, Make Selection...
And I'm gonna go, maybe, three radius.
So now it's a little bit feather,
Command-L and maybe not that far, just a little bit
just to make this a little bit darker.
Yeah, that's kinda cool.
Yeah that's, I don't think anybody's gonna notice that.
And you know, I could spend more time
with the Stamp tool, making sure everything is perfect.
There's a bit of a bleed there.
You know, but you get the general idea.
Basically, the workflow is really simple;
number one, take a texture from one side,
put it to the other; number two, use the levels
to match the luminosity;
number three, use the Stamp tool
to make it match completely.
And this is like a patch work,
but this photo, guys, was kind of like
my most liked photo on Instagram
over the last month and I wanted to share
this with you.
You actually can download this photo
and I give you a little challenge,
you try to do the same thing that I just did
and post it on Instagram, tag me @PHOTOSERGE
and I will share the best on my story.
So you just, you do a story, you put @PHOTOSERGE
on your story, so I can share it,
because you can only share stories on Instagram.
Put your name on it and the one who did a good job,
I'll share it and you're gonna get some good followers
out of my 80,000 followers on Instagram.
All right guys, I hope you learned something.
If you know a better way of doing this,
just leave me a comment, tell me how you're doing it
and that's how I've been doing it for 15 years
and I will see you next Tuesday.