Create a seamless blend

[silsurf@me.com]

I have often had issues trying to blend two photos into one seamlessly.

The scenario I come up with is two images that have been scanned, usually from a book and I want to put them back together. Often the binding is in the seem, so I have to lose some of the image because it did not scan all the way to the edge.

The areas I need to blend I usually use a mixture of clone, smudge, heal, etc. to try and get a seamless cross over, but in the end you can always see the place where they come together.

I am pretty good with Photoshop, but I know there must be a better way. Any thoughts or tutorials on this would be appreciated.

Henry

[hatstead]

If you are so inclined, please post a representative file with the two pictures and the imperfection. This will give us a better idea as to the problem.

[silsurf@me.com]

Here are the two pages side by side. Because the scan line is also the curve of the inset, I lose some image data

Here is the trouble area

Thanks for all thoughts and guidance

Henry

[hatstead]

Henry,

Using the Rectangular marquee tool, I made a selection of a "good" area next to the text, and placed that on its own layer (CTRL+J). Then, with the move tool, nudged it over the distraction as a patch.

For some of the other areas, I opened a blank layer at the top, filled it with 50%gray & overlay blending mode.

Used the eyedropper tool to sample adjacent color and painted over defects with the brush tool @40% opacity.

Another option for your purpose may be to scan the pages individually  and place them on a new background. You would have 100% control of the size to make it conform to the size of your paper stock.

[silsurf@me.com]

thanks, all good suggestions. The two sides are different scans and on different layers right now. I will try your ideas and report back.

Henry