If you accidentally select too much of the background, Option-drag across those pixels to subtract them from your selection.
For this image, use a larger brush for the lights (30 pixels) and a smaller one for the pole (9 pixels). As you drag, Photoshop adds similarly colored pixels to the selection, though the quantity of pixels selected is directly proportionate to the size of the tool’s brush cursor. Mouse over to your image and drag atop the light post to select it. You can also activate the Quick Selection tool by holding down the Shift key and tapping the W key on your keyboard until you see its icon in the Tools panel. If you have multiple layers, activate the topmost layer and create a stamped copy of all visible layers by pressing Shift-Option-Command-E.
If you’re working with a single-layered document, duplicate the layer by pressing Command-J. To ensure you’ve got plenty of background pixels for Photoshop to work with, do the pixel-zapping before cropping. Open an image with a medium-to-large sized object to delete, like this light post.
(As of this writing, Photoshop Elements’ Fill command has a content-aware option, but it lacks a Patch tool.)
In this column, you’ll learn how to use both options safely, without destroying your original image. But what if you need to use another area of your photo for the fix instead of surrounding pixels? That’s where the Patch tool shines. If you’ve got plenty of background pixels surrounding the thing you want to zap, you can quickly send it packin’ with the Fill command’s Content-Aware option. Adobe Max, the company’s annual conference, is coming up next month and usually brings several updates along with it, but Adobe could make photographers wait a little longer for the feature to roll out.When it comes to removing objects in your pictures, nothing (yet) beats the power of Adobe Photoshop CC. Outside of sharing that the tool is coming, Adobe hasn’t yet said what version of Photoshop the new tool will be coming to.
The current tool will remain active under the options inside Edit > Fill, even after the update launches, Adobe says. The update also makes the tool easier to find, adding it to Edit > Content-Aware Fill. The new tool also allows editors to export that fill as a new layer instead of altering the original image, allowing for further manipulation once back inside the usual Photoshop interface. Photoshop’s existing content aware tool can only fill the gap with what is already in the image, exactly as it is in the image - it can’t rotate or distort the copied area to match the rest of the image. You can replace a butterfly’s missing wing by mirroring an intact one, for example. With new mirror and rotate options, the tool allows for correcting portions of the image that are somewhere else in the photo but are flip-flopped or tilted from what needs to go in that gap. Using a paintbrush tool at the side, photo editors can change what parts of the image to use in that fill.īut the Content-Aware fill tool will soon be able to replace that missing section of a photo with something that doesn’t exist perfectly in the original photo itself, thanks to artificial intelligence.
That green area shows what parts of the photo the software is using in order to guess what needs to replace the object that you selected. To house all those options, the Content-Aware Fill tool will open to a new panel, much like other tools with their own interface such as Select and Mask.Īfter selecting the object and opening the updated tool, Photoshop displays a live preview next to an image with a green overlay.
The overhauled tool will give photographers options to help get the fill to blend seamlessly with the rest of the image. But, there are little photo editors can do if the software doesn’t get it right the first time. Photoshop already has a Content-Aware Fill tool that automatically removes a selected area and replaces it based on the pixels around that object. On Monday, September 10, Adobe teased an overhaul of the Content-Aware Fill tool coming soon to Photoshop CC. Making an object in a photo disappear is a time-consuming task in Photoshop but the photo editing software will soon have a more effective tool for wiping out telephone poles, trash cans, and other objects that are better left out.