Removing Chainlink Fence

I first ran into this problem shooting little leage baseball. Today it was the zoo. I appologize perfusely if this is a common question, but I couldn't find any posts about it yet.

Is there any good way to clean up a photo where you had to focus through a wire fence?

The paticular image I'm trying to clean right now is < http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2071/2334762970_a7f96530b4.jp g>

Fortune did not smile upon my first attmepts;
any suggestions would be appriciated.

Thank you.
Mike

not really. best you can do - i found this works at baseball, don't know how close you were allowed at the zoo - is to put the lens of the camera THROUGH a gap in the fence and focus that way.

With that image it would be relatively easy to first use Curves Adjustment Layers with appropriate masks to bring the out of focus links closer in line with the background and then use a bit of judicious cloning to finish it off.

To add to what Peter said, while I would construct the mask with the Pen tool, I would then rasterize it so I could add a bit of feathering.

You'd also have to take into account the difference where the vertical and horizontal wires cross each other.

Either way it's going to take a lot of time and patience to achieve a good result.

Is it worth it? Human vision is very accommodating and will tend to "overlook" the fence.

Next time take Dave's advice and shoot through a gap if you can.