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Author Topic: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool  (Read 3707 times)

Robert Boire

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Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« on: June 01, 2015, 07:57:33 pm »

Hi,

Is it my imagination or is the enhanced spot removal tool semi-useless for finely detailed work?

The user manual shows a well-defined marquee area for the part of the image to be removed. Yet it seems that in order to define what needs to be removed you need to paint the area (instead of outlining it) and the brush is too thick to do it with any precision.. unless you zoom in a great deal, loosing the context of the image. Or am I missing something?

Robert

Rhossydd

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2015, 03:28:59 am »

unless you zoom in a great deal, loosing the context of the image.
Surely if you want high precision you need to go in close ? It's only a click each way to zoom out, plus you have a small overview of whole in the navigator panel. If the panel pins hide any detail you can hide them with the 'H' keyboard short cut.

Not sure I understand what you expect from this, it seems fully featured to me.
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Robert Boire

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2015, 08:25:11 am »


Not sure I understand what you expect from this, it seems fully featured to me.

lets say there there is a figure in the foreground I want to remove. I set my brush to minimum, zoom in and outline the figure as precisely as I can.  I then need to paint inside the outline. My brush is now at the minimum and I don't seem to be able to increase it at this stage, so the task is laborious. If I zoom out, its even worse because the brush is very, very small. If I happen to slip and let go of the mouse button, I have an incomplete selected area.

What I find most annoying is at this stage there is nothing I can do. I can't edit the marquee or continue to fill in the outline.  I have to delete it and start all over.  It seems like a lot of trial and error if you are trying to do something precisely.

R

Rhossydd

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2015, 08:33:47 am »

I think part of the problem here is that highly precise work doesn't work with this tool. You need a degree of feathering to make it work acceptably and that precludes pixel level accuracy.
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JeanMichel

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2015, 09:48:22 am »

lets say there there is a figure in the foreground I want to remove. I set my brush to minimum, zoom in and outline the figure as precisely as I can.  I then need to paint inside the outline. My brush is now at the minimum and I don't seem to be able to increase it at this stage, so the task is laborious. If I zoom out, its even worse because the brush is very, very small. If I happen to slip and let go of the mouse button, I have an incomplete selected area.

What I find most annoying is at this stage there is nothing I can do. I can't edit the marquee or continue to fill in the outline.  I have to delete it and start all over.  It seems like a lot of trial and error if you are trying to do something precisely.

R

I think that the spot removal tool is just that,a spot removal tool to eliminate dust spots and such -- a digital Spotone. To remove a picture element you really should take the image into Photoshop.
Jean-Michel
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Anthony.Ralph

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2015, 11:15:25 am »

lets say there there is a figure in the foreground I want to remove. I set my brush to minimum, zoom in and outline the figure as precisely as I can.
  [..]


From your description of how you are using this tool, I believe you are trying to use it in a way that was not intended.

Taking your example of a figure to remove (and bear in mind we are not talking major surgery here) I would select a suitable size for the brush and then paint over the item to be removed in a quick and sloppy way - absolutely no precision required - or indeed advisable. Indeed for a single figure, a brush large enough to completely cover the width of said figure would be my choice and starting at top, with a single downwards swipe completely cover the figure in one go. The selection can be moved if desired as can the spot used by LR to select the 'cover' patch.

By the way, you can change the brush size as you go by using the right-and-left bracket keys on your keyboard (even whilst the mouse key is pressed).

Does this help?

Anthony.
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Robert Boire

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2015, 11:59:54 am »

From your description of how you are using this tool, I believe you are trying to use it in a way that was not intended.


Maybe so, but if you look at the user manual, the example I gave is exactly what is shown.  I tried what you suggested and results were so-so. A lot depends on the image itself and what is available for cloning. As I said, it would not be so bad if I could edit the result.


By the way, you can change the brush size as you go by using the right-and-left bracket keys on your keyboard (even whilst the mouse key is pressed).

I know... I tried the [ and ] several times and nothing happened. Is there some kind of setting to turn this on?  Also impossible to use the mouse wheel while editing to adjust paint brush size.

R

Anthony.Ralph

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2015, 01:20:39 pm »

Maybe so, but if you look at the user manual, the example I gave is exactly what is shown.  I tried what you suggested and results were so-so. A lot depends on the image itself and what is available for cloning. As I said, it would not be so bad if I could edit the result.

I know... I tried the [ and ] several times and nothing happened. Is there some kind of setting to turn this on?  Also impossible to use the mouse wheel while editing to adjust paint brush size.

R

As others have noted, the tool is more for spotting and the results, as you say, can be a little so-so - sometimes very good, other times not so much.

As to the bracket key resizing, it did work here (Win PC) although the response to my tap-tapping using the mouse was somewhat laggy, but a little better with the Wacom pen.

Anthony

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Jim MSP

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2015, 01:26:12 pm »

Hi,

Is it my imagination or is the enhanced spot removal tool semi-useless for finely detailed work?


I view the simple spot removal tool as just that - spot removal 101
I view the enhanced tool as heal/clone 201 -- it works ok on simple objects within many, but not all photos. Pretty good for wires across a sky or bugs on a flower, or an out of place small branch.

But for fine detail where the brush needs to be a couple of 10s or a few pixels in dia, I take it into PhotoShop after most everything else is done. PS is for Grad school.
I think LR may keep improving, but I doubt it will ever be a full replacement for PS
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luxborealis

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2015, 07:16:09 am »

Not very often, but there are times when I require great precision so I use the spot tool in the same way a spotting brush was used on paper prints - essentially removing/cloning out with a series of single spots. The beauty of it is that as I build each spot, I choose precisely where it is cloning from.

Users need to remember that for the most part the spot/cloning tool works brilliantly, but there are times when we, the functioning human user, needs to put some thought and effort into a cloning strategy that fits the situation. It doesn't always work the first time we try a certain strategy, so we learn/adopt other techniques.

Rant warning: By the way - that's good thing, in my opinion, as I would prefer the tool to misfire a few times to get me thinking and using rather than just pushing buttons.

It's no wonder painters just shake their heads at how photography is becoming more and more auto-push button and solve a problem!

I'm not saying this is what the OP is after, but there is a whiff of this in the conversation.
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Terry McDonald - luxBorealis.com

Robert Boire

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #10 on: June 03, 2015, 12:54:47 pm »

It's no wonder painters just shake their heads at how photography is becoming more and more auto-push button and solve a problem!

I'm not saying this is what the OP is after, but there is a whiff of this in the conversation.

Really?  You have misinterpreted my intention.

If I simply wanted to push buttons and do it quick and dirty, I would not be hoping that the tool would allows me to make my selection precisely, which obviously requires a certain amount of time, or to edit that selection.  I too have used the spot removal tool (as opposed to the  "enhanced" spot removal tool) by building up multiple individual areas. Its time consuming and can be a bit crude, but at least I can go in and change the spot diameter when I want to fine tune the result. I cannot even do that with the "enhanced" tool.  I may not be using it for what it was intended (as several have suggested). But in then end, I just want to be able to reliably reproduce the example in the user manual.

But anyways, the analogy with painting is really good. To me the spot tool is a bit like asking Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel with a paint roller at the end of a long pole.

Wayne Fox

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Re: Enhanced Spot Removal Tool
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2015, 03:55:59 pm »



It's no wonder painters just shake their heads at how photography is becoming more and more auto-push button and solve a problem!

Considering that a great many "painters" use a photograph taken by someone else for the basis of their work, I'm not sure any of them really should be shaking their head. And of course, they've been "solving" their problems since the beginning because they paint whatever they want, and aren't restrained by some notion that if you photoshop out a tree or a new sky into a scene some how you've violated some sacred responsibility of maintaining photographic integrity.  (sorry, I know off topic, but I"ve been having a really bad day so far).
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