It's really quite amazing what you can do with the "free" copy of Photoshop Elements that comes with most digital cameras, scanners, and printers. You can see above what I was able to accomplish with just a little practice, using the crop and clone tools.
The first picture, leftmost, is the original. I felt that the piece of furniture on the right and the register cover under the subject's feet were distracting from the subject.
The first thing I did was to crop out the piece of furniture that was intruding on the left side of the photo; this is easier than trying to clone it out, and helps to elongate the height of the picture, which emphasizes the vertical nature of the subject and the environment he is interacting with. This brings us to the center image.
The final step was the one that required the most skill; using the clone tool. Frankly, a little practice with this tool can truly produce wondrous results. I cloned the floorboards, sweeping from front to back, replicating wood grain until I reached edges. I did not make the edges crisp and perfect, since the high resolution of the photo allowed me some slop, and since over-perfected processing can actually make the photo look "not quite right" to the viewer. That gave me the image you see on the right.
And that's it -- and what a difference from the original. The composition is much improved, and the subject truly becomes the focus of attention.
1 comment:
Wow! That is indeed a lovely picture. I would not have thought that the third was not an original.
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