Help me, Obi-Wan! You're our only hope!

[stuny]

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7ht Avenue and 36th Street, Manhattan

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[dpitt]

Good timing! 
I rarely see much need for photoshopping reality. In this case, I would consider removing the guy in the back with the white T shirt. Not sure how you think about altering reality?

[stuny]

1 hour ago, dpitt said:

Good timing! 
I rarely see much need for photoshopping reality. In this case, I would consider removing the guy in the back with the white T shirt. Not sure how you think about altering reality?

Dirk -

That bothered me, too, and I tried to darken his shirt, but my skills were not good enough to make it look good.

[fotografr]

19 hours ago, dpitt said:

Good timing! 
I rarely see much need for photoshopping reality. In this case, I would consider removing the guy in the back with the white T shirt. Not sure how you think about altering reality?

The difficult part of this would be replacing the background elements that would have been visible if the guy wasn't there. The feature called "generative fill" in beta Photoshop would easily do this, but the trade off is that this would then become a fake image. 

[David Cantor]

One of the plus points of having the man with the white tee-shirt is that he adds another layer, Alex Webb is an example of a photographer who goes out of his way to create layers in street images. I find his inclusion somewhat enigmatic.

David

[dpitt]

2 hours ago, fotografr said:

The difficult part of this would be replacing the background elements that would have been visible if the guy wasn't there. The feature called "generative fill" in beta Photoshop would easily do this, but the trade off is that this would then become a fake image. 

I can agree to some extent. Most of the time, I do not alter the reality of a shot.
Some will remove public on tourist attractions, or remove electricity cables or cabins in a shot... That is completely fake. I sometimes remove a building crane or something that will not always be there.

In this case, the guy in the back was at the wrong spot on the wrong moment IMO. I think it is part of artistic freedom to alter the image so that he is not there, or wears a different color of shirt...

Actually, a shot will never be truly accurate, just like we see it ourselves. Camera sensors, film and lenses see reality in an other way than we do.

So, I came to accept that if someone will take the time to alter reality, to make a picture just like he intends it, that is part of the artistic process. Painters have done this for ages, so why not...

Like I said, in most cases, I would not bother to take the time, but sometimes it is just a way to save a great image. The same as using HDR techniques or focus stacking, or even cropping, lifting up shadows and recovering highlights where needed.

[stuny]

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As you can see from the exchange above, Dirk Pitt made an excellent suggestion (get rid of the guy in back with the white T-Shirt).  Dirk did so, using software that's been around for a while, and it was good, but with limitations.  I also tried something, but I didn't like the results.  Brent Nicastro mentioned the Beta version of Photoshop using "regenerative fill."  As you can see below, it's a most remarkable tool, wielded well by Brent.

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[dpitt]

For me this shows that AI in photography has its place.
I dabbled around with text based image generators. It is amazing what you get but the result is very hard to control in order to get the exact image you imagine.

For me AI shows great potential in saving imperfect shots. We all have made them, the perfect moment but under exposed or background issues, or focus issues, movement blurr...

@fotografr

Your result is almost perfect, and I guess it did not take to much time. I see some issues remaining on the location of the head in the background, but I supposed that could be quickly fixed too.
I made a quick attempt (10 min) with traditional tools and found some challenges in this particular job. My estimate is that it would take me 30-60 min to get a perectly invisible result like yours.

How much time did it take you with the new PS?

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by dpitt

[fotografr]

7 hours ago, dpitt said:

For me this shows that AI in photography has its place.
I dabbled around with text based image generators. It is amazing what you get but the result is very hard to control in order to get the exact image you imagine.

For me AI shows great potential in saving imperfect shots. We all have made them, the perfect moment but under exposed or background issues, or focus issues, movement blurr...

@fotografr

Your result is almost perfect, and I guess it did not take to much time. I see some issues remaining on the location of the head in the background, but I supposed that could be quickly fixed too.
I made a quick attempt (10 min) with traditional tools and found some challenges in this particular job. My estimate is that it would take me 30-60 min to get a perectly invisible result like yours.

How much time did it take you with the new PS?

 

This took only three to four minutes and most of that time was waiting for Photoshop to process the results after I had selected what I wanted to remove.