Difficult Background

[Admiral_Noah]

I'd like to remove the bloke in the white shirt. Problem is the painting on the wall behind him.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to how best to deal with this. I am definitely not an artist so painting  in the missing part of her face would be a disaster!

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

Photoshop can't invent a face. I'd just skip that part, and replace it with something else. Do you have more images taken at the same time? Just find something appropriate from another image and put in there instead. It's all background and a bit blurred anyway.

Work with masks, so that you have flexibility and can work with the mask edges to get a seamless fit.

Great shot, definitely worth a little work. But that said, are you really sure it matters? As a portrait, yes, but in context, it might work splendidly as it is. The shirt guy adds movement and dynamics. Everything doesn't have to be sanitized and perfect 😉

[Admiral Noah]

Thanks!  I liked the shot too - I'm not the world's best so doubly pleased.

I agree about sanitising. As you say the photo works pretty well in the context of the club. But, I'd like a portrait too! 

I use the pen tool quite a bit but am extremely nervous of masks. Any time I tried to use these I end up with an all black or all white layer. I must be missing something obvious. 

I'll take your advice about the background and look for a similar image to paste in.

Thanks again!

[Derek Cross · Accepted solution]

I did a quick try using Select Subject then fine tuning, putting it on its own layer and stretching the background. 

[Admiral Noah]

Wow!  She's quite different now. Unworldly, almost floating in the air.

I will try to emulate. She has a few wayward wisps of hair over her face which I'll try to remove with the pen tool.

Stretching the background is something I never tried or even thought about. There is so much to learn! 

Thank you very much for this and for your interest.  

[Derek Cross]

Re the background, I'd also blur it a bit (use Gausian Blur).

I suggest you use the Spot Healing Brush Tool to remove wisps of hair on the face.

[Admiral Noah]

I keep getting emails from the forum asking me to mark the best answer on this thread.

I have tried to find out how to do this but no success.

The posts by DFosse and Derek Cross were all helpful.

[D Fosse]

Don't worry about it. We're not here for the bonus points 🙂

You can disable all email notices in your forum profile. That's what I did.

[jane-e]

"I keep getting emails from the forum asking me to mark the best answer on this thread."

If you are signed in you should be able to click "Correct Answer". You can choose more than one. Or we can do it for you if you tell us which ones.

~ Jane

[Admiral Noah]

Thanks again to all! 

Jane, there is no 'Correct Answer' tab as shown above on my version of FF. I use Linux (Kubuntu) - sometimes the Linux browser isn't exactly like Windows. Perhaps that's it. Anyways, you did it for me! 

[jane-e]

Can you post a screen shot so we can add this as a forum bug? The line in the image I posted above should appear under every reply.

~ Jane

[Admiral Noah]

[Admiral Noah]