Help removing person - several shots shown

[pdrow]

Hello,
I have Photoshop CS. I am going to post several shots to give you an idea of what I am up against. Hopefully, the feedback will help me be more efficient than a lot of trial and error.

The original was very noisy as it was shot at 1600 in a very dark theater. I did clean it up with noiseware. That would be the one titled Lexi Cropped and noise removed.

There are no other modifications made on that one.

In the next post, I have one that I converted to black and white. The dancer shows up much better. I also have one I left with the colors, but I used the OpticVerve plugin and made it dreamy looking. The dance was a dream scene, so I thought it worked for the photo. I would add back detail in the moon if that is the one we decide to go with. I think I can figure out how to do that.

The mom of the front dancer would like the back dancer removed.

Here are my questions:
1. Since I am going to have to run the noice reduction, will I be better off to wait to run it after I have removed the dancer and in doing so remove any excess noise made from removing her.

2. What will be the best way to remove her? I am not an advanced PS user, but I usually figure a way to muddle through. I just want this to be great. I am open to several suggestions because I know there are 100s of ways to do each application. They are going to want a 16 x 20 at least. So any flaws will show.

I have about a week before they are going to want to see the photos.

Any suggstions are welcome.
Thanks :)
Pam

[pdrow]

Here are the black and white and the dreamy purple one.

[grandad35]

This was just a "down-and-dirty" that took 3 minutes to show one approach without being particularly careful about the selection details (which you will have to be).
1. Generate a duplicate layer with the entire image.
2. Generate a second duplicate layer and add a layer mask. Invert the layer mask to make this layer invisible.
3. Work on the 1st duplicate layer with the clone stamp and healing brush to eliminate the back dancer, without regard to the damage that you are doing to the girl (I obviously didn't spend enough time on this).
4. Paint the mask on the top layer with white to make the girl reappear. This is obviously where you will spend your time - to get the edge transitions correct. If you go too far, black will reverse the action. By using different brush sizes and hardness/softnesses, you can feather the edge transitions.

[tim]

Can you be more specific about what you want removed from which photo? There are a number of people in the first shot, and I don't know if your "The mom of the front dancer would like the back dancer removed." is referring to the first or 2nd shot, or both.

If you want to remove the background dancers from both shots, I think that's going to be a particularly easy task - just use the clone tool. Google it for instructions and have a play, but it's pretty easy. I'm newish to photoshop but I rekon I could do it in 10 minutes or so.

[pdrow]

Thanks so much. I can hardly wait to sit down and play with it. I just posted the first so it could be seen how noisy the photos were. I was able to crop most of the dancers out, but as shown by grandad, I needed to remove the darker dancer from behind the dancer. If they would have both hit the move at the same time, it would have been cool to leave her. Since that didn't happen, I really appreciate the adivce onhow to take her out

Again, thanks so much
pam

[tim]

Do noise reduction first, otherwise you're playing with noise.

Clone tool 30 second tutorial:
- Select the clone tool.
- Hold alt and click on the area that you want to replace the person with.
- Release alt and paint over the dancer. Change your brush size to large first, then move to small for fine work.

That's the basics, if you have any questions I can probably answer them. Most of what I learned about photoshop I read in this book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735714118/qid=1107206467/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/103-2757698-3088621?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), which I highly recommend.

[pdrow]

Thanks for all the help. I am going to post the one I have now. I did it just as you said, but I had to add an additional step. After I had the other dancer removed, I was not happy with the background. It just didn't look smooth. I pasted a piece from the background, but I was not happy with that either as it didn't have the varied color range as if from the moon. To solve the problem, I found another shot from the same scene that I could just a larger section from. I used it to cover the entire shot, used a mask and erased to see the dancer, the moon, etc. I like it much better now. Again, thanks for the help.

The next step will be color adjustment. I am open to suggestions for that as well. I would like to lose the blue tint to her skin. I have done a couple but they just don't speak to me.

I hope her mom likes it.
Pam

[tim]

Looks pretty good. You could've used the patch tool or the healing brush to tidy up the background. To remove the blue tint try selecting her fact then going to the color adjustmentment dialog - I forget the exact names of them.

[caesars0331]

Select the areas you want to remove the blue from with the lasso and then to to hue/saturation and select blue from the edit dropdown and try lowering the saturation. Might work

[PhotosGuy]

Nice job so far! Re: "I would like to lose the blue tint to her skin. I have done a couple but they just don't speak to me.". I'm not sure I'd fool around with that - every step will lead to another, & another... OTOH, it'll probably be fun to play with. ;-)

[pdrow]

Thanks. I did take some of the blue from her skin. I played with the free opticVerve vurtual photographer and had loads of fun. :) I have several variations to show the mom. Now, I am putting this one to bed. There are only about 1200 more from that week of ballet to play with now. <sigh>

Photoshop is just too much fun. I used to sleep, clean house, watch tv, etc. Now, I photoshop.
pam

[Chazs]

Nice job so far! Re: "I would like to lose the blue tint to her skin. I have done a couple but they just don't speak to me.". I'm not sure I'd fool around with that - every step will lead to another, & another... OTOH, it'll probably be fun to play with. ;-)

Nice job so far. Someting to try to fix her skin color is to isolate her (use quick mask); create a new layer of just her, and start playing with the color via curves, white points, etc. Then, change the opacity of this layer to 40-80% (or something) to make it look how you like. Here's a quick one I did just to give it a different look. Not the greatest, but it might give you some ideas.

[pdrow]

Thanks! I am learning so much from all of you.
pam