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A
Anonymous
April 2, 2012
Question

Can't get Content Aware Fill in CS5 to work as advertised in many tutorials...

  • April 2, 2012
  • 7 replies
  • 27023 views

I have tried unsuccessfully to get Content Aware Fill in CS5 to work as advertised in the dozens of tutorials I have watched.  I have used many of the techniques, but unless the background is a simple one, CAF seems to drag in stuff from all over (even if I protect it in a mask) the background.  Is there some special trick I am not aware of?

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    7 replies

    M
    michaelf86977221
    Participant
    July 22, 2019

    I was going to try transferring a selection to a new layer before applying Content Aware.  Then I decided to try the technique that was supposed to work:

    1-  In Bridge, select photo, which then appears in Camera Raw.

    2-  Click  Open Image

    3-  Make selection with lasso tool

    4-  Edit>Fill>Content Aware>OK

    It WORKED!!!!     I have no idea why the past failures.   Another mystery of life.

    M
    Margateblade
    Participant
    August 13, 2012

    This might be a little late. I had the same problem and I found that in the fill dialog box the opacity was on set at 1%. Change this to 100% all ok!

    PECourtejoie
    Community Expert
    PECourtejoieCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 3, 2012

    Hello, have you watched this video? http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-terry-white/what-to-do-when-content-aware-fill-or-content-aware-scale-doesnt-work/

    A
    Anonymous
    April 4, 2012

    Yes, I have...tried it several times, but I think there’s just too much “stuff” around for CAF to handle. I think I’m going to have to give up on CAF for complex situations like this one. Thanks for your help anyway.

    By the way, do you know how to get help on using this Forum? I can’t seem to get the Reply button to appear in my responses. The only way I can reply is by replying to these e-mails, which is OK, I guess. Also, don’t know how to start a new question. When I type in a question in the box, I don’t get switched to a question form if I click on Submit Question.

    Thanks again for your help.

    Noel Carboni
    Noel Carboni
    Legend
    April 4, 2012

    There has been a forum problem where the Reply button wasn't available, but it's supposedly fixed now.

    -Noel

    SuperMacGuy
    SuperMacGuy
    Known Participant
    April 2, 2012

    Well the sad reality is that sometimes the computer tools just won't work properly. I tried CAF and on the 10 or so sample images I selected, only 1 of them worked even marginally well as advertised, and I still had to fix up some small bits here and there. I even intentionally chose images I thought CAF would work well with, patterned backgrounds or solid colors and such.

    I work in Prepress and I've seen it all from client submissions and requests. The manual clone tool is something I believe we all need to have skills with (that and the pen tool for clipping paths). If some other people have good results, that's good for them; but I am still of the opinion "magic" like this never works consistently for everyone. At least not like we're led to believe (hmmm advertising lying to us... what a concept).

    In my opinion, you're asking too much of CAF for this image. It's a little complex and there is not enough "background" area for the algorithm to pull from. Probably more worth your time to "suck it up" and clone it yourself.

    Noel Carboni
    Noel Carboni
    Legend
    April 2, 2012

    It works marvelously well, if you prep for its use properly.

    It never ceases to amaze me.  Just yesterday I took a microphone out from in front of a person standing and speaking, then all I had to worry about was its shadow!

    Why don't you post the image you're trying to use the tool on and we can offer some suggestions on how to get the best results.

    -Noel

    A
    Anonymous
    April 2, 2012

    Not exactly sure what is meant by copying the areas to a new layer, but I tried it...didn't work.

    This is the procedure I use which I developed by taking notes from tutorials I have watched:

    Select object (the cups and pot at top) and save to new channel.  In channels tab, Cntrl-click to load selection.  Click on RGB channel. Choose Selection/Modify/Expand and expand selection by about 20 pixels.  Edit/Fill with Content Aware.  Deselect.  Fix as necessary.

    Heres the image (see below) I'm working with (I want to remove the cups...in preparation for Puppet Warp procedure which I will use to bend them):

    CAF is bringing in the white rectangular objects jutting out on the left side, bricks on the right corner, the sign on the bottom, etc., etc.

    Thanks for the help.

    Noel Carboni
    Noel Carboni
    Legend
    April 2, 2012

    You can direct Content Aware Fill to only choose from certain pixels using a mask...  Russell Brown did a great video on that, if only I could find the link...

    I just did a search and came up with this: http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/CS5ContentAwarePatterns_SM.mov

    I believe I've seen this same video on the Adobe TV site, which will be delivered via Flash instead of being a Quicktime movie.

    -Noel

    A
    Anonymous
    April 2, 2012

    CAF is like a clone tool, if you get too close to objects it will think this is part of the image to be considered in Content Aware Fill.  As Trevor said you want to isolate the part of the image you want in a seperate layer then use CAF.

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 2, 2012

    I saw a preview of CS6 from a Photoshop 'expert' recently, where he explained that the new Content Aware Patch tool meant we can now sample the edge of an image without the bleed the OP refers to.   But we have always been able to do that, provided we drag our sampled pixels parallel to the edge we sampled them from.  I know we now have more flexibility, and can drag the sampled area from an edge to the center of the image, but it irked me that he was being simplistic, and filtering reality in order to make his point.

    Bu@@er!  I'm a Photoshop pedant.  Somebody shoot me.

    Hmmm....  That won't work because a lot of you guys are worse than me!!!

    Did anyone follow this link I hid in a post earlier today?  I failed with knobs on. :-(

    http://elitebydesign.com/you-know-youre-addicted-to-photoshop-if/

    Trevor.Dennis
    Community Expert
    Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 2, 2012

    Try selecting only the areas that you want CAF to look at for making the fill, and copying them to a new layer.  Then using CAF on that layer.

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