Generative fill - can it actually FILL?

[KE_DP]

The attached photo will help illustrate this.  I want to match a background as accurately as possible and use it on someone else  - take an existing photo and remove the person and fill in the background (which is a vignette/solid color with some texture - then drop it in a layer on the other portrait.  Generative fill goes nuts with this - and inserts some goofy clown people in the empty space.  haha 

Sure I could try content aware fill (not so good at first but ~20x times in smaller areas works OK) - or sample a color and fill in ONE color (maybe clone the texture and paint a curves vignette) - but that wouldn't be acurate to reproduce the BG and use it with a different person.  I could painstakingly sample/paint/clone and brush in to blend and fill - but that's a pretty tough job.

Can gen fill do this?  I've tried all kind of keyword decriptions and only get ridiculous results.

[didiermazier]

I would use two layers.

One layer with the subject. select subject and mask with the active selection

Then after masking the subject layer ask for a generative fill for the underlayer

 

 

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@KE_DP what prompts are you giving generative fill? If you are leaving blank - having a person shape selected like this will make the AI think you want another person.

Don't know why you would want to use that selection either way - as @didiermazier pointed out - create a blank layer, select it, generate a layer with "background with texture" prompt (being as specific as you need to) and use that with a masked person on a new layer.

The benefit of generating this way is you can reuse the backdrop layer with multiple images. If you regen with each one - backgrounds would be inconsistent.

[Myra Ferguson]

Instead of using Generative Fill, I'd recommend using the Remove Tool. You'll find it nested with the Spot Healing Brush or you can use the Discover Panel (Edit > Search or the magnifing glass in the upper right of the UI by the Share button) to search for it. 

You might use the selection that you already have and expand it by a few pixels (Select > Modify > Expand...), make the brush size for the Remove Tool fairly large, and draw over the selection. 

When I tried it with your image, it did a pretty good job on the first try. It made a little wrinkle in the center that might either be hidden by your next subject or that you could smooth out using some Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur...) or with the Blur Tool.

[KE_DP]

Thanks didiermazier but you missed what the question was about (reproducing the background from another image - exactly.  Similarly kevin stohlmeyer the point was duplicate the existing BG and fill over where the person was standing with the same color and texture.  Even if I didn't use the same person outline but drew a circle or rectangle selection - I still got extremently weird results from gen fill.    Myra Ferguson  - your recommendations were down the right path - I'll play with those ideas though I was probably more successful using multiple passes of content aware fill.    This may ultimately be the best solution.  (pic attached)

Thanks to everyone for help and ideas!

[Myra Ferguson]

Your result looks great! I'd recommend using whatever works best with the least amount of fixing required. 🙂