How to extend background, borrowing from another background

[sarah_lange1]

<p>Hi: I took a group shot for a business at an outdoor setting. Four people. The photo they chose had to be cropped to 4x5 inches per their business's specifications (I did not know this ahead of time). When I crop it, two men's outer arms -- they are on each end -- are slightly cut off. <br>

So I am trying to figure out how to put this group into a 4x5 that gives them more background so that the arms are not cut off. I do have other photos that have more background but all my trials and errors and experimenting are not working out. The backgrounds when I sandwich the photos don't match up. Then, there's the problems of the people in the photo I'm using for the background and getting rid of them. But mostly the problem is when I place the photo they want over the photo with more background I still am left with no additional background because I haven't shrunk the people in the original photo so it still goes edge to edge. <br>

I'm sure there must be a way to do this but how?<br>

Thank you!</p>

 

[ShunCheung]

<p>Have you tried the PhotoShop, fill with the content-aware option? I tried that recently on a current version of PhotoShop. IMO that feature has improved greatly since a couple of years ago.</p>

[sarah_lange1]

<p>Thank you both. I have not tried content aware, I haven't even gotten that far, to filling edges because I'm still trying to match up edges of smaller, larger photos. But I am watching the you tube video Phil linked and that is explaining maybe how to do this so that it great. Thank you for that video. Yes, I can see that if it works to do it like video says I don't have to fuss with a second photo. But not sure it's going to tell me how to get the original photo to 4x5, at what point in the process do I crop? But thanks for getting me started on this. :-)</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Content-aware fill in PhotoShop is different from what Phil has in mind.</p>

<p>For example, assuming that my original image is this pelican inside the 3:2 orange rectangle on the upper left. If I want to make a 5:4 print with more area in front of the pelican such that is has "more room to fly into," I can extend the canvas to the lower right to the size I want for my final print. Now I have an L-shaped blank area, which I can apply Content-Aware Fill:</p>

<ul>

<li>Select the blank, L-shaped area</li>

<li>Edit -> Fill -> select "Content-Aware"</li>

</ul>

<p>PhotoShop will manufacture new content for the blank, additional new background area. As you can see, this is a pretty complex background, and PhotoShop does a good job creating the additional background. Obviously PhotoShop uses materials from the original background to fill in the extended area; therefore, you may see a bit of repetitive patters.</p>

<p>I haven't seen the image Sarah has in mind, but it sounds like this procedure is similar to what she needs. Keep in mind that the original image area is not at all modified such that your subject won't be distorted; it merely adds new background to fit the intended new aspect ratio. I had tried this same procedure 2, 3 years ago, and PhotoShop back then didn't do nearly as good a job as it can now. E.g. a few years ago PhotoShop could duplicate the pelican's wing or foot into the new background area.</p>

<p>In the video Phil links to, they attempt to reduce the gaps among people inside the images. I have learned some tricks from that video, but it seems to be a bit different from what Sarah needs.</p><div></div>

[JDMvW]

<p>When it works, "content-aware" is simply magic. It can be used to fill in things around an image, fill in nasty intrusive things, take away parts of people and people themselves.<br /> It could also be called the "ex-spouse removal tool".<br /> If filling in large areas, such as in Shun's example, sometimes you have to do it in a couple of stages to lose repeats of part of the pelican or whatever. [i have an older version of Photoshop]<br /> This is really quick and dirty, but it's superficially ok. With great care, you get better results after you get the hang of it.</p><div></div>

[sarah_lange1]

<p>Thanks Shun. Yes, I've tried to use Content Aware in the past and, as you mentioned, it picks up unwanted content, such as the pelican's foot, and becomes a big mess -- unless you have a wide swath of clean content to borrow from. So maybe I have an older version too. In my photo of four colleagues, there isn't a lot of background around them (which is why I can't crop to 4x5) and so to try Content aware I'd definitely get lot of body parts in with the background. <br>

Thank you JDM. Your example here looks like it works way better than Cloning or Healing Brush. <br>

But here's a question -- Let's say I want to try Content Aware even though my version is probably early and not as sophisticated. How do I drag out the photo to 4x5 and dragged out the way Shun's done with his pelican photo? Thank you.</p>

 

[ShunCheung]

<p>From PhotoShop:<br>

Image -> Canvas Size, select the desired width and height. You can always make it a bit larger than what you really need and the crop later on. Also anchor your original image to one side or corner. In your case you probably want to anchor it to the bottom and let PhotoShop fill in some extra top background to make the 5:4 aspect ratio.</p>

[sarah_lange1]

<p>Hi Shun: Thank you! I will give that a try. Also, thank you so much for offering to look at the photo. That's very kind of you. However, I cannot share this photo. This particular business is super careful about privacy and super cautious about photos getting around. In fact, I cannot email them any photos for that reason. I have to deliver everything on a flash drive. But I appreciate your offer. </p>

[sarah_lange1]

<p>Well, the content aware actually worked great. Thank you again everyone. The problem is though -- and it's a math problem and I have zero math ability -- no matter what I do I have too much sky. The new canvas and content aware fill-in trick worked great in terms of giving me enough room to the left and right to get the men's outer arms in (although it didn't give me a ton of space but enough). But regardless of where I placed the old photo after dragging it onto new canvas, once I cropped to 5x4, invariably I ended up with too much sky. I tried putting the old photo in different placements in hopes of not having so much empty sky space on top but it never worked. I always ended up with the same final photo. I tried a new canvas at 5 x 4 and larger 5x4 ratios (for example 25 by 20) and then I tried a canvas of 25 inches (5) width but shorter height. No go. I still ended up with too much sky. </p>