Can a separately created mask be used with Content Aware Fill?

[Ian Jaffray]

Hello,

I have been experimenting using the Content Aware Fill function to remove noise and tracking bars from a single frame of really bad old VHS video. The results here were created by using multiple rectangular selections and running the tool three times, which removed most of the original noise, albeit introducing a bit more hypothesizing as to what "might" actually be under those bands.

The bands contain pixels of absolute 0,0,0 black, distinguishing them from the muddy low contrast pixels elsewhere in the frame, so I wondered if this tool can accept a separate mask created by thresholding the original image, in this case at 35, and then perhaps expanding the resulting black mask area. I am wondering if a rectangular selection throws away a fair bit of "good" background information.

So, the question is can I provide a separate mask for the Content Aware Fill tool, or is it restricted to the selection tools in the Toolbar? Please see the attached image for reference.

Thanks for any insights,

Ian J.

[Conrad_C · Accepted solution]

I don’t think you can load a mask into Content-Aware Fill, but you don’t have to. As long as you can convert something into a selection, when you enter Content-Aware Fill, the selection active at that time becomes the initial Sampling Area.

For example, using your Threshold adjustment layer technique, after setting the threshold you can press the “load merged luminance as selection” keyboard shortcut, which is Command+Option+2 (macOS) or Ctrl+Alt+2 (Windows). Then, with that selection active, hide the Threshold layer, select the image layer, and go into Content-Aware Fill.

It might save you a few steps to instead do a Select > Color Range, sample the black, set the Fuzziness low, and that would create a selection based on black. Then you enter Content-Aware Fill, and the selection active at that time becomes the initial Sampling Area. That way you don’t have to create, hide, and later delete the Threshold layer, and you don’t have to change which layer is selected.

Any other technique you can think of that will convert those black levels into a selection will also work.

If Content-Aware Fill results are OK but not great, this also looks like a great test case for Generative Fill in the Photoshop public beta. Content-Aware Fill can work well, but now, Generative Fill often comes up with better solutions.

[Ian Jaffray]

Hello Conrad,

Thanks very much for your detailed and helpful response. I'm sorry, I didn't get an email notification you'd posted, so I'm just getting caught up today. I'll mark this the correct answer.

Thanks again,

Ian J.