Deb, Please be more specific. By "background, do you mean the sky or wall or something like that?
I am guessing you have already made a pattern out of a photo, used the paint bucket and discovered the new pattern is applied in about 6 tiles. Have you tried using the pattern fill option? This option is accessed at the bottom of the layers palette. Pick pattern from the menu list. By using this option you can scale your pattern. (If you haven’t made a pattern, all you have to do is open the image you want as background; use the marquee to select the entire photo, then go to Edit, pick Define Pattern, and name your new pattern. It will be found at the end of the current pattern group that is currently loaded.)
Terri
Hi, Deb.
What I get from your description is that you simply want to remove something that is in a photograph, and make it look as though it was never there.
Without knowing the details of your image, my first suggestion would be for you to use the Clone tool to cover up the "bad" portion of your image with some of the "good" parts.
The first caution is that you work on a copy of your image so that in the event something goes wrong, you haven’t lost the original.
On your working image, make a new, blank layer. Then select the Clone tool. Select Aligned and Use All Layers in the Options bar. Choose a brush size that you feel comfortable with.
With your blank layer selected, place your cursor over the part of the image which you wish to be the "donor" site for the cloning. Hold the ALT key and click that area. Release the ALT key, and click over the unwanted part of your image — you will see that the source area you selected is copied to the place you just clicked.
Keep clicking/painting to cover up the part you don’t want in the picture. If you need to, you can change the place you sample from by ALT-clicking in a new area.
Because all of the "new" pixels are on a layer of their own, you can erase them, or just delete the whole layer if you need. Don’t expect to get it perfectly the first time!!
HTH,
Byron
Hello:
Thank you all for all of your suggestions!!! To MARK: The background is just the background of the picture. I found the part where you select an area and then fill it in with a solid color, but this doesn’t look very good. I need to have it look just like the background of the picture.
For everyone else who answered: To better explain what I’m trying to do, go to our website at: www.wildlifetreasures.com/dogs1.htm
There you will see the pictures that I am manipulating. Often times I need to take an animal out of the picture and I want to replace it with the background. To BYRON….Yes, I have been using the cloning tool to do this task, but with the cloning tool, you have all these little circles from every time you stamp, so I need to go back after I get the animal out of the picture and blurr it all together. It seems to me that there should be a better way than using the cloning tool for this.
To TERRI….You are definately in the right area of my question….I want to fill the area with the background but I don’t want it to be tiled. Can you explain this a little more…..I am not very good at understanding some of the Adobe terms…..
THANK YOU all so much!!! This is the first time I have posted a question and actually gotten answers to my question!
I will gladly try anything you think may work. Debbie
You don’t need have "little circles" from using the clone tool. You can use it like a brush, rather than just stamping it. Watch the targeted area (shown with "+") move as you apply the cloned background.
Hi Deb,
Looked at your image and downloaded the photo to experiment. I think it’s safe to say a pattern fill and selections are not a good option because of the fur. I really think you should give the clone tool another try but use as a brush as Ingrid mentions…and I think I would reduce the opacity to 20-30% with this particular background. To me, 100% leaves too obvious of tracks. I think I am fairly decent at selections and found the dogs had a bit of a sheered look when selected. I don’t think this is something you would want since fur is a major selling point for you. The only other option I could come up with was to use the pattern stamp tool. You’d use the marquee tool to drag a selection of good background go to edit and pick define pattern. The drawback is that the smaller the selection the more the tiling. If you reduce the tools opacity to around 20% you might (might being the word to note here) skate by with this particular background.
Sorry, I couldn’t be more constructive here but I felt I shouldn’t just leave you hanging. Maybe a more inventive individual will come along with a better solution… Best of luck with your project. By the way, very cute figurines.
Terri
Thank you ALL for your help in this problem!!! To INGRID: Yes, I do use the cloing tool like a brush, but then I always need to go back over it to "smooth" the edges out with a less defined brush selection. To TERRI: Yes, I will try to fool around with the Opacity feature….I’ve never tried that before, I’ve always used different sizes and types of brushes. And I will check out that Pattern Stamp tool too and see if that is an answer. I really thought that the feature to fill in with a background (NOT JUST THE COLOR) was there, I just couldn’t find it………oh well, it would be MAGIC if everything worked the way you wanted it to!!! Terri, thanks for the compliment on our Furry Animals. I’m working on a catalog to send to GOOGLE CATALOGS and that’s why I want my pictures to look very professional. I’ll keep plugging along…..I’m really glad I came to the discussion group to ask…..I’ll have to take a look at other questions and see if I can help someone else out.
Thanks again!
Everyone have a Great Spring Day!!
Deb
Deb, you can probably avoid the clone tool "little circles" if you use a soft brush or airbrush rather than a hard brush. In fact, I never use a hard brush just for this reason.
Dear Mark:
Thanks! How do I change my brushes to be soft or to a airbrush?? Deb
Deb,
Click on the clone tool (or any other tool that uses a brush) then look up at the top of the screen and you will see a white box with a black squiggle in it. Just to the right of that is a blue section with a triangle in it … click on the triangle and you will be able to change your brush. There are all sorts of brushes there.
Wendy
Deb, to eleborate on what Wendy said..
The rectangular box in the tool bar shows a sample of the currently selected brush (if you hold the cursor over the triangle, it will say "Show selected brush presets"). Clicking the triangle brings up the list of brushes as Wendy said. At the top of this list is another pull-down list of brush sets. The default set is called "Default Brushes", but there are other sets with brushes of all shapes and styles. You should check them out, some are pretty neat. For example there are brushes which paint falling leaves or scattered flowers when you use the paint tool with these brushes.
Mark
Deb,
The presets are great but you can also change the characteristics such as hardness of most brushes (there are a few exceptions such as square drop shadow brushed which have greyed out options that are not adjustable). When you select a brush, look a little right of center at the top menu bar (looking from left to right). You will see a brush icon with the word options beside it. If you press the arrow, you get access via a menu in which you can change the current brush setting such as hardness and scattering to name two. The airbrush has an icon about dead center on the top menu bar. To be honest, I’ve never noticed a difference created by using the airbrush but have seen others post enthusiastic remarks about it.
Terri
THANK YOU ALL!!! I will fool around with all of your suggestions and if I find something that works really well, I will post it for other people. I hope you’re all enjoying a beautiful spring day! Thank goodness for laptop computers and networks! I hope to go outside and work today on the computer!
Sincerely,
Deb Kowal
www.wildlifetreasures.com
