Photoshop - question re removing reflections in glass?

[Dinarius]

I have a shot of panes of coloured glass that have some reflections of my camera and tripod in them.

You see nothing through the panes of glass except even white wall, or grey concrete floor.

So, my only issue is with the reflections of my gear.

Using the Patch Tool and the Clone Stamp Tool, I can do a pretty good job. But, it's very time consuming and the effect is a bit 'muddy' in places.

Since I don't need to see anything through the glass (except white wall and/or grey floor) is it possible to make a selection of a clean area of a pane of glass, and then select the entire pane and apply the selection to it?

If so,...

1. How would I make the sample selection?
2. How would I select the pane of glass and apply the selection to it?

Thanks.

D.

[D Fosse]

This sounds like a perfect textbook scenario for the Content-aware fill. Make a tight selection of the surrounding glass, as much as possible including gaps, then back off a few pixels to avoid contamination. Invert the selection, and Edit > Fill > Content aware.

CAF works best with a clean, hard edged selection. Don't try to feather. It can also pay to lift the area in question to a separate layer - IOW leave out anything that isn't glass or tripod.

When content aware fill was first introduced, I wrote it off as a silly gimmick. But I quickly had to change my mind. Yes, it goofs on occasion, but surprisingly often it does a splendid job in cases like this.

And once you've fixed this particular shot, you'll quickly get in the habit of covering up your tripod and use cross-polarized lights whenever possible...glass is a b!tch :-)

[Dinarius]

Thanks.

Three questions...

1. How do I make the selection?

2. How do I "back off a few pixels"?

3. When I choose Edit > Fill > Content Aware, how does it know to fill the area with coloured glass/white background and not tripod legs?

Thanks again.

D.

[kirkt]

Can you post an example of one of the unedited shots?

kirk

[Otto Phocus]

I can also highly recommend the book
Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua

Most of the book is on dealing with reflections.

[D Fosse]

1. Magic wand, quick selection should do fine here. Probably much easier than selecting the reflection of the gear. But if that works better, by all means.

2. Select > modify > contract (or expand, depending). The point is to have selection that is close, but not too close.

3. Because if you've done this right, you have a selection of tripod/camera only. That selection is what CAF will attempt to remove and blend with the surrounding area.

But yes, if you could post an example that would be easier.

[Dinarius]

Thanks all.

Sorted now.

Selection Tool > Edit/Fill worked well on some areas.

Patch tool took care of the rest.

D.