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Author Topic: Making People and Other Things go Away  (Read 35620 times)

vjbelle

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Making People and Other Things go Away
« on: July 31, 2015, 08:12:01 am »

Very cool, Kevin.  Thanks much for the post.

Victor
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Andy Ilachinski

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2015, 08:49:23 am »

Great article Kevin!

Made me recall a somewhat related experience I call "Boinga, boinga, boinga,..." from a few years ago: http://tao-of-digital-photography.blogspot.com/2008/08/boinga-boinga-boinga-shots.html) in which I was gnashing my teeth waiting for hordes of people to finally cross the precariously balanced Indiana-Jones-style hanging wood-plank bridge I was standing on (and trying to get a shot of Ausable Chasm in upstate New York). I wish I could use your method to get rid of the stomping feet back then (and at the moment) ;)

Kevin Raber

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2015, 09:52:50 am »

Thanks for the comments.  I am kind of addicted to this now and have enjoyed going to certain busy highways and intersections and making them look like the end of the world has come.    All sorts of possibilities and one more thing to keep in mind when doing landscapes at popular tourist destinations.  I used this recently on a beach in Iceland.  Just one more thing to keep in your tool box.

I should note that in some cases you will need to go in and fix things that weren't caught like a ghosting on a cloud or tree branch.

On Sunday I'll post an article on Focus Stacking using Photoshop.  Nothing amazingly new but I am surprised when leading workshops how many people are unaware of or never tried the technique.

Kevin Raber
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graeme

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #3 on: July 31, 2015, 10:25:29 am »

Very cool, Kevin.  Thanks much for the post.

Victor

+1
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Rand47

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #4 on: July 31, 2015, 10:44:09 am »

Kevin,

Great stuff... Funny I used essentially the same technique to "add traffic" to a section of freeway here in Southern CA.  The light was best during light traffic hours but the client wanted "rush hour" traffic.  It was more difficult in that I had to place vehicles in believe able spacing!

Rand
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MatthewCromer

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #5 on: July 31, 2015, 10:59:35 am »

Excellent!

Thanks Kevin
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AFairley

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #6 on: July 31, 2015, 11:19:16 am »

Great tip, thanks Kevin.  I was aware of the concept from Matt Lauer's haunting pictures of L.A. freeways (http://emptyla.com), but your automation of the process (as opposed to going in and hand masking in each layer) is cracking good!
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 11:21:29 am by AFairley »
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Ken Tanaka

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #7 on: July 31, 2015, 01:14:39 pm »

Back many years ago an early variation of this stacked-frame elimination technique is how Bruce Branit and Jeremy Hunt made
405: The Movie  (IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259165/)

It was a remarkable piece of amateur short filmmaking and well worth the few minutes if you've never seen it.

- Ken Tanaka -
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Daniel Mitchel

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #8 on: July 31, 2015, 02:11:46 pm »

Hi Kevin,  nice article.  How do you preserve shadows?  Seems like if too much time went by the process would erase the shadows as they would be "different."
(My first post I left out two letters in "shadows" making the word "shows.")
« Last Edit: July 31, 2015, 03:54:12 pm by Daniel Mitchel »
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jfwfoto

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #9 on: July 31, 2015, 02:25:52 pm »

Using 'statistics' under 'scripts' in photoshop does most of the steps in one dialog box and it remembers what you did the last time so all you have to do is select 'use open images' and you are done. I use statistics mostly for blending multiple images in 'mean' mode for enhanced image quality with noise reduction. Also works well with bracketed exposures without any HDR look.
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DocD

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Will lightroom work for this task?
« Reply #10 on: July 31, 2015, 04:45:21 pm »

Thanks
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Kevin Raber

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #11 on: July 31, 2015, 04:57:27 pm »

No, Lightroom won't work for this technique.  You need the statiscal part of Photoshop to perform this.

Kevin Raber
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Manoli

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2015, 05:41:02 pm »

Kevin,

This seems a rehash of the old, tried and trusted method of:
File>Scripts>Statistics : Median
Load files ...

What is the benefit here, in your opinion, of converting all the files to smart objects ?

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BradSmith

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #13 on: July 31, 2015, 08:22:17 pm »

Kevin,
And THANKS for including links to the files.
Brad
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jfwfoto

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #14 on: July 31, 2015, 09:19:17 pm »

When statistics is finished you have a single smart object that is the blended result of all the files you gave it and the smart object is the closest thing to raw that you can have that is not actually a raw file. It is just a way to do non destructive editing.
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Manoli

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2015, 04:35:58 am »

It is just a way to do non destructive editing.

Nope, not here, as Kevin flattens all layers at the end of his video (which is destructive).
Kevin describes the step of converting to SO 'as an important step' at 2:14 in the clip.

From what I see, there is no difference to running
File>Scripts>Statistics : Median
Load files ...

and, if you want to, converting the flattened file to a SO at the end.
So Kevin, what is 'so important' , or rather what's the benefit over the simpler procedure ?
« Last Edit: August 01, 2015, 04:40:33 am by Manoli »
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Internaut

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2015, 09:57:54 am »

Many thanks.  That's going to work nicely in situations where Content Aware fill will struggle.
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dreed

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #17 on: August 01, 2015, 10:18:12 pm »

Great story!

Thanks for the post.
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pcgpcg

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2015, 04:42:21 pm »

Just one more thing to keep in your tool box.
Thank you Kevin. Your unselfish willingness to share techniques is much appreciated. I would really like to use this, but unfortunately CS6 basic won't allow it and I'm reluctant to lease software.
Does anyone know how to do something similar using CS6 basic?

On Sunday I'll post an article on Focus Stacking using Photoshop.
CS6 basic can do this, however, using Scripts.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2015, 05:17:57 pm by pcgpcg »
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Schewe

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Re: Making People and Other Things go Away
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2015, 02:33:37 am »

Thank you Kevin. Your unselfish willingness to share techniques is much appreciated. I would really like to use this, but unfortunately CS6 basic won't allow it and I'm reluctant to lease software.

You are wrong...simply select the images in Bridge and Load into Photoshop Layers, select all and convert to a Smart Object then modify the Blend Mode.
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