This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Removing distractions
Sometimes there are items in a photo that distract you from the subject enough that you want to remove them. They might be extra people in the background, overhead utility cables, or dust on a surface or on the camera lens. In older versions of Photoshop and other similar photo editors, removing distractions often required time-consuming manual retouching. The current version of Photoshop can remove some common distractions automatically.
In Photoshop, choose File > Browse In Bridge.
In the Content panel, compare the files 02_Remove_Start.jpg and 02_Remove_End.psd. Notice that 02_Remove_Start.jpg contains overhead utility cables and people that have been removed in 02_Remove_End.psd.
)
Double-click the 02_Remove_Start.jpg thumbnail to open the file in Photoshop. Click OK if you see the Embedded Profile Mismatch dialog box, and close any messages that might appear about new features.
In Photoshop, choose File > Save As. Choose Photoshop from the Format menu, and name the file 02_Remove_Working.psd. Then click Save.
Removing wires and cables
One of the automatic removal features is Wires And Cables. That will be useful for removing the utility cables in this image.
In the Tools panel, click and hold the mouse button on the Spot Healing Brush tool (
) to reveal the other retouching tools in its tool group, and select the Remove tool (
).In the options bar, click the Find Distractions button, and then click the Wires And Cables button.
)
The utility cables disappear because the Remove tool replaced them with content it generated, but it isn’t perfect. You can see some visual discontinuities where the cables were removed, especially along the top of the hill. You can improve that by manually using the Remove tool.
In the options bar, set a brush Size of about 45 px, and drag the Remove tool to paint a magenta highlight over the areas where the removed cable area doesn’t look right. Each time you release the mouse button, your last stroke is processed. If it doesn’t look right after the first try, drag the Remove tool over the same spot again.
)
At this point it should almost look like the cables were never there, except for one thing: The utility pole that held up the cables is still there. The Remove tool can handle that too.
Drag the Remove tool over the utility hardware, including any remaining cables. It’s OK to drag multiple Remove tool strokes and to drag over utility hardware that you see behind the tree leaves.
)
Removing people
In this image, the two people on the right are friends, but the two on the left are other people. The Remove tool can easily remove the people on the left.
With the Remove tool selected, in the options bar click the Find Distractions button, and then click the People button.
)
A Finding People progress bar appears; when it’s finished, you see that the image hasn’t changed, but some areas are highlighted in magenta. A magenta highlight marks a candidate for removal. In your own work, if you think all magenta regions should be removed, you’d go ahead and apply the removal (step 4). But in this case, to preserve the two people on the right, you’ll remove their highlight color.
In the options bar set a brush Size of about 60 px, and click to select the Subtract from Brushed Area icon (
).
TIP
If you see more people you want to remove, in the options bar click the Add to Brushed Area icon (
) and drag over those areas to add a magenta highlight.
)
Drag the Remove tool to erase the magenta highlight over the two people on the right; be sure to include a subject’s shadows when highlighting or removing a highlight. You may also see magenta highlights in other parts of the image that mark areas incorrectly identified as people; drag to remove those magenta highlights too; we saw and removed some magenta highlights in the distant landscape on the right.
)
In the options bar, click the Apply To Current Strokes icon (
) to apply the removal to the areas highlighted in magenta.
)
)
Well done! You’ve removed distractions from the image. The photo more effectively focuses attention on the landscape and the friends.
Close the document, saving changes.
UNDERSTANDING IMAGE SIZE AND RESOLUTION
Resolution is a term that has different meanings depending on the medium. For video and electronic displays, resolution means the width and height of an image in pixels, the small squares that describe an image. For example, the resolution of a 4K video frame is 3840 × 2160 pixels. For print, resolution means pixel density, a ratio such as 300 pixels per inch (ppi).
)
In Photoshop, the most common ways to change the number of pixels are the Crop tool and the Image > Image Size command. To change pixel density (ppi), when using the Crop tool, enter a value in the Resolution field; or when using Image > Image Size, enable the Resample option.
How do you know how many pixels are in an image?
Multiply the width and height of an image, in pixels. For example, suppose an image is 2100 × 2100 pixels. That equals 4,410,000 pixels or 4.41 megapixels (one million pixels equals one megapixel). The number of pixels affects an image’s file size and its upload/download time.
How do you know an image’s resolution in pixels per inch?
Divide an image’s width or height in pixels by its number of inches. For example, if a 2100 × 2100 pixel image is 7 inches wide, then each dimension is 2100 pixels divided by 7 inches, or 300 pixels per inch.
How much resolution is enough?
The requirements of a delivery medium determine how much resolution an image needs. For example, in video, if an image must fill every pixel of a 4K frame, it must be 3840 × 2160 pixels. For a print job, an image must have enough pixels to print at the required size with the required pixel density. For example, if an image must fill a space 7 inches wide and the production requirement for resolution is 300 ppi, then the image must be at least 2100 pixels wide (7 inches times 300 ppi).
How does physical reproduction size affect resolution?
Changing an image’s reproduction size alters its effective resolution, because the same number of pixels now cover a smaller or larger area. For example, if a 2100 × 2100 pixel image was 300 ppi when printed 7 inches wide image, at 14 inches wide (double its original width) its 2100 pixels divided by 14 inches equals 150 ppi, because the same number of pixels is spread across twice the width. For this reason, when preparing images for print, knowing that they need to be 300 ppi is not enough. You also need to know at what size in inches each image needs to be 300 ppi.
Viewing distance influences the pixel density our eyes actually perceive, and this affects resolution requirements too. The traditional 300 ppi guideline for print is based on a viewing distance of roughly arm’s length, like when you read a book. A very large photo print intended to be seen from several feet away can be printed at lower than 300 ppi, because beyond a certain viewing distance, your eyes see the pixels as dense enough to have a high effective resolution. For the same reason, a 50 ppi image can appear perfectly sharp on a highway billboard because it’s seen from hundreds of feet away.
Does image resolution always have to match the resolution of the printer or display?
Because of the way display and output technologies work, an image file might not need to match the resolution of the hardware that reproduces the image. For example, some commercial printing platesetters and photo-quality inkjet printers have a device resolution of 2400 dots per inch (dpi) or more, but those dots are grouped into larger halftone cells or dot patterns that build tones and colors. Because of that, for images the appropriate image resolution to send to those devices may be only 200 to 360 ppi. Whether you’re editing for print or online viewing, ask your production team or output service provider to verify what resolution they require for the images you’ll deliver, whether it’s a ppi value or a width and height in pixels.
What’s considered high resolution?
For images reproduced on screens, one way to currently define high resolution is when an image has enough pixels to fill every pixel on a HiDPI (Windows/Android) or Retina (Apple) display. These displays generally have twice the pixel density of older displays.
For print, an image might be considered high resolution when its ppi value is around 240–360 ppi at its final reproduction size, because at that pixel density, it can reproduce enough detail to take advantage of the device resolutions of printing presses and professional photo printers.
Does changing the resolution affect the storage size of a file?
Only when the number of pixels changes. If an image starts with a width and height of 2100 × 2100 pixels at 300 ppi and you change either the size in inches or the ppi value but it still has 2100 × 2100 pixels, the file size does not change because it’s still storing 4,410,000 pixels. In the Image > Image Size dialog box in Photoshop, this is how it works when the Resample option is disabled.
If the Resample option is enabled, it’s possible to change the width and height in inches and/or the ppi value so that the number of pixels changes, and that does change the file storage size. If the example image is changed to 72 ppi while maintaining 7 × 7 inches, now there are only 254,016 pixels, so the file size goes down. (72 ppi * 7 inches = 504 pixels, and 504 * 504 = 254,016 pixels total.)
It’s important to remember that the number of pixels is not the only factor that determines file size. The file size of an image can also go up or down depending on its file type, bit depth, number of channels and layers, its compression method and quality level (if compressed), and more.
