@paddyfitz replied to your post “Photomanipping bits and bobs”
I guess watermarks is the big thing with me, especially if there are more than one and they would block the face. Is there anything you can do if you don't have an original clean copy?
I guess I should explain the “original clean copy” thing to people first, as I remember telling you about it privately, but I don’t remember talking about it in public, I don’t think. We’re referring to a thing where--if you’re lucky enough to find a different version of the photo (usually lower in res) that’s either not watermarked or has the watermark in a different place--you can just blow up the lower-res picture/scale it to match the bigger picture and slap it underneath the picture you’re trying to dewatermark. And then erase the watermarks so that the lower-res photo’s clean areas will show through from underneath--usually the quality difference isn’t noticeable if it’s just a narrow area. Let me illustrate it here, in addition to the other stuff I do:
So when you go to, say, Fotofinder, they originally display the images looking like this when you browse their site:
But when you click the little cloud and download the preview image, they give you an image with a watermark that looks like this:
The image with the C is 493x630 px. The image with the “Fotofinder” watermark is 626x800 px. So the bigger image is, obviously, what I want to clean up. So I blow the smaller image up to the bigger image’s size so they match, and then line them up on top of each other in Photoshop:
So, from here, you can see that I could just erase the Fotofinder logo, but then I’d still have to deal with a) the images being of slightly different contrasts, and I still have little bits of the C showing through.
Luckily, it looks like the lighter, less contrasty picture is, in fact, the exact same shade as the lightened area on the watermark! Mostly, anyway. Normally, something like this would necessitate for me to select the watermark and copypaste it as an entire new layer, the Contrast and Levels of which I’d fiddle with (I always use that technique with the Gettyimages bar, for instance--I cut out a copy of the bar, slap it on top of the original and then adjust *that* to match the rest of the image), but here, I just have to colour-match the darker areas. I just deselect the bits of the C out before fiddling with the Levels, like the bit over Reinhold’s Mickey Mouse glove and that bit in the middle of his belly, and keep the rest of the layer selected and apply the Levels fiddlage onto that, like so:
Note that I’ve created a spare, unedited copy of the lowest, poor-res layer at the very start of the project, just in case I’ll have to use elements of it later. I do this with manips all the time, making a spare copy of, say, a headshot before I do any drastic changes to its colouring, so I have several old spare Connie heads I can whip out without having to go back in History (and lose all the other edits I’ve made on the image, if I just want to fix something I fucked up with his nose when the rest of his face turned out fine). Also note that I’m not using an adjustment layer on this, but working on the layer itself (Image > Adjustments > Levels).
But! Buggeration! We’ve still got bits of the C left, but they’re too tiny for me to bother selecting and applying contrast fiddlage onto, and they’re all over areas that haven’t got anything really important going on. So I can go over them with a combination of the Spot Healing Brush Tool (the little band-aid thingy) and the Clone Stamp tool. With this one, I could do it with the Spot Healing Brush alone. Like so:
But my anal-retentive little eye spots two tiny bits in here that are still in need of fixing:
Namely, these two bits on Connie’s sparkly gay cloak. As anyone who’s ever tried to dewatermark anything knows, busy areas like these, especially ones with really clear lines or patterns (the more geometric and straight, the more infuriating--tweed is the worst) are the hardest to reconstruct. If I were *really* dedicated about this image, I would probably be copypasting these areas separately, too, making new layers of them, fixing the contrast and then erasing the bits from around them that don’t match.
But this is a quick one, and I’m lazy, so I’m just going to use a combination of the Clone Brush Tool and--and this is something you may have to resort to sometimes, with the peskiest watermarks--the Smudge Tool. So I take a tiny (5 px) brush and smudge... smudge... smudge...
This is the sort of painstaking, detailed, tiny little fiddly stuff you will sometimes have to resort to. And this is exactly the sort of thing that gives many manips their “paintedy” effect, because with tiny, fiddly detail like this, an airbrush or the Clone Stamp tool aren’t enough and you just have to paint it by hand. This is, IMHO, the best way to work with hair and, like here, with folds of fabric and other fiddly little places where using the Clone Brush would just result in a juddery, stair-like effect. (Also, *loud whisper* sometimes the reconstructed bits might look a bit different to the original, but if you keep it subtle, the chances are that nobody will notice.)
So, here. The final result. Adjusted a bit for contrast--note that this also swallows a number of flaws. Note that you can also use the Dodge, Burn and Sponge tools to deepen shadows or to brighten bits or to desaturate areas if needed.
But, of course, the more complex and obnoxious the watermark is, the crappier the end result will look because sometimes there just won’t be enough “clean” areas left to copy. Sometimes it’s just impossible, and I have given up on certain images, too. But a combination of these cut-out-and-mess-with-the-contrast fiddlages, Spot Healing Brush, Clone Brush and Smudge Tool techniques will go a long way if you’re persistent enough.
Hope this helps!
