P: Batch Spot Removal / Content-Aware Fill for Same Selected Subject in Multiple Photos

[anssik_]

My workflow would speed up if there would be a way to select a bunch of photos and have them all select the same subject in the photos and make a Content-Aware Fill / Spot Removal for all of them (a.k.a. Sync).

What I typically do for a corporate portrait session backgrounds is looking for a white wall — white as a plain and empty wall painted with light colors — as not requiring to carry and setup background stands and background canvases.

But, often times finding a wide enough clean wall is difficult as there's light switches, marks on the wall and such distractions just creeping in to the photo — especially if I'm trying to frame people loosely to have some empty background space for ready to use text-on-photo layouts (for quotes and such). And I'm shooting hand-held so the framing is slighty different in each photo and can't just do Select All and paint the same Spot Removal for all (and Spot Removal is not good if the distraction in the picture hits the borders of the frame).

So what I need to do is photoshop those distractions with Content-Aware Fill for every single photos, and when there's dozens of people posing in the same place, I end up photoshopping the same distractions dozens of times.

That's tiring.

What would be a real benefit would have that kind of Content-Aware Fill built into Lightroom Classic and have that new Mask Select Subject AI letting me choose the distraction in one photo and make the same selection in all photos (even if in slightly different place in the frame) and fill the distraction with Content-Aware Fill from the surrounding clean plain "white" wall.

Could that be possible? I'm sure it could, let's make it happen!

[GoldingD]

I do not have the link immediately at hand, but a issue came up with applying spot removal/heal after masking for sky. Turns out if you do so, in the sky, then the sky has to get recomputed. Solution is to apply spot removal/heal before masking, before select sky.

[anssik_]

Thanks @GoldingD! What I'm really hoping for, is being able to batch Content-Aware Fill a bunch of photos to remove light switch on a wall, though. So not really related to your tip, but thanks anyway!

[Todd Shaner]

"So what I need to do is photoshop those distractions with Content-Aware Fill for every single photos, and when there's dozens of people posing in the same place, I end up photoshopping the same distractions dozens of times."

You can create an action in PS to allow batch automation of the Spot Healing Brush tool. You'll need to create a new action for each shooting session based on the general location of the item you want removed. What you will need to do first in PS is open the Actions setting panel (three lines icon upper right) and check Allow Tool Recording. Create the action and then use the Automate> Batch tool to apply it to multiple files. The only way to do this is export the files in LrC to TIFF file format, which you are already doing. This will speed the processing.

PS Spot Healing Brush content aware fill samples the immediate surrounding area to calculate the fill pixels. LrC uses a 2nd copy of the spot removal selection, which it automatically relocates to what it thinks is a good area for fill. Often this is totally wrong and needs to be manually relocated. To implement the tool behavior you need the LrC Spot Removal Heal tool needs to be redesigned to work the same as the PS Spot Healing Brush.

[GoldingD]

In LrC or PS?

Content Aware Fill is in PS not LrC.

[anssik_]

Yes @GoldingD, Content-Aware Fill is not in Photoshop. I tried explaining my workflow in Lightroom Classic would really benefit in having that kind of tool in Lightroom Classic as well, so I could use Spot Removal tool more intelligently, as @Todd Shaner well explained Spot Removal not being good in automatically selecting the area for fill.

I really want to keep my workflow with photos in Lightroom Classic, when that's possible. Two main benefits to me are:

• no multiple instances of the same photo to get lost in Folders and Collections
• no TIFF files and instead original data in kept in RAW

I praise Photoshop for it's photo and image manipulating capabilities, and I don't expect Lightroom Classic to get all Photoshop functions, but I consider batch removing a lights switch from a wall in a simple portrait photo a real help in my workflow.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Have you tried the new Content Aware Remove Tool released today? Let us know how it works for you.