Big Oops! Please Help

[dheaton]

I photographed a family 2 days ago and didn't realize that when the studio strobe went off it reflected very bad in a photo above the fire place.
Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem? Is there anyone out there that knows how to do this? I have played with cloning and healing but can't make it work.
PLease help
Here is a link to the photo I am talking about
http://www.heatonphoto.com/test.htm

Thank you in advance for your help

David

[Matt_C]

I'm far from being an expert with this sort of thing but I had a go at your problem just in case I could help. Here are the steps I took using photoshop but I'm sure other software can use similar techniques. Heres a link to the results I got but I'm sure with more tme and an origional image you could get a much better finish.

http://www.bytegallery.com/showphoto...cat/500/page/1

Steps

1. Select the rectangular marquee tool and make a selection of the top left side of the picture. Big enough to completely cover the bad reflected spot.

2. Press Ctrl and J to paste that selection into a new layer.

3. Hold down ctrl and then left click on the new layer to reselect that bit again.

4. Goto Edit then Transform and then click on flip horizontal

5. Select the move tool and drag the selected piece and make sure the top right corner of your selected piece lines up with the top right corner of the old pic.

5. Next goto Edit and then transform and this time select Skew. Then click on the top left corner of you selection and drag it upwards to line up with the frame. Once in position press enter or double click inside the selection to apply it. (It will look a bit jagged until you apply it. If you don't get it right first time then go back a step and try again.

6. Next goto select and click on deselect or just press ctrl and d.

7. Now adjust the opacity of your new layer to about 10%. This is just so you can see the underlying layer underneath quite clearly.

8. Now add a layer mask to the new layer. (Click on the layer menu and select add layer mask and reveal all.

9. You will now see in the layer pallett a white box next to your new layer. This is your layer mask. When you paint with a black brush you reveal the layer underneath and when you paint with a white brush you cover them up again. So if you make a mistake you just have to switch colour again and go back over it so it gives you complete control. What you need to do is with that white box selected (click on it once) paint over the picture with a black brush to reveal the bits you want. (This is a lot easier than I'm making this sound) The more care you take at this stage the better results and you are probably better zooming in. Working big is better for this sort of thing.

10. Next take the opacity back up to 100% on your new layer to show the changes you've made and fine tune as neccesary. You might want to finish with a little cloning here and there.

11. Finally flatten the image, print etc etc.


Hope this helps in some way David. There are probably a hundred different ways of fixing the same problem. The best way for me would be to take a shot of the picture on its own and paste it in to the old shot to fix it. f you need any more help don't hesitate to ask.

Great shot by the way.

Good luck

Matt

[dheaton]

Thank you so much. I will give it a try.
I will guarantee you one thing, I will never have this happen again.

Thanks

David