Removing powerlines from a photo

[KirbyKrieger]

I've tried a similar method (Aperture is non-destructive, so no need for the layers), but after 123 different strokes of the 'healing brush', I gave up in frustration!

Fwiw, Aperture is fine for this task.  Set your brush to about 5x the width of the wire, 100% opacity, automatically select source.  Do about 1/4" of screen real-estate at a time.  Having parallel wires is actually somewhat helpful: you can do 1/4" of each wire, then return the first wire, which should be "healed" by then.  123 strokes may seem like a lot, but it can be done fairly quickly.  I'd do all the wires, then go back and fix anything ugly.

That many strokes will bog down Aperture on any machine.  You are well advised to close it down and re-open it a couple of times. 

Working with a tablet will speed things up.

[EduPerez]

I recently read on a book a technique that sounds quite interesting (at least on paper, I have not had the opportunity to test it myself). After you take your picture, move a few meters and take a second shot: the sky sill be exactly the same, but the power lines will have moved. Now put both images on separate layers, align them, and use a mask to select the portion of each image without the lines.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I recently read on a book a technique that sounds quite interesting (at least on paper, I have not had the opportunity to test it myself). After you take your picture, move a few meters and take a second shot: the sky sill be exactly the same, but the power lines will have moved. Now put both images on separate layers, align them, and use a mask to select the portion of each image without the lines.

That sounds like a great idea, assumed the clouds don't move too fast while you're moving.

Actually I wonder if removing powerlines at all is such a good idea.
Of course, at times we want a nice image, and I myself often have been annoyed by that kind of "junk", which often stopped me from taking a photograph - but on the other hand its a fact that mankind does something with nature and its environment - not always good. Removing the powerlines also removes the documentation of that man-made alteration from the image.
I don't want to say its bad to do that, just want to emphasize that aspect of the whole thing and remind of not forgetting it.
E.g. one could decide not to remove this kind of artifacts,use them in ones composition instead and make something unique out of it - which would be an art of its own.

[RobSaecker]

That sounds like a great idea, assumed the clouds don't move too fast while you're moving.

Actually I wonder if removing powerlines at all is such a good idea.
Of course, at times we want a nice image, and I myself often have been annoyed by that kind of "junk", which often stopped me from taking a photograph - but on the other hand its a fact that mankind does something with nature and its environment - not always good. Removing the powerlines also removes the documentation of that man-made alteration from the image.
I don't want to say its bad to do that, just want to emphasize that aspect of the whole thing and remind of not forgetting it.
E.g. one could decide not to remove this kind of artifacts,use them in ones composition instead and make something unique out of it - which would be an art of its own.

That's New Topographics in a nutshell, no?

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

That's New Topographics in a nutshell, no?

Seems I have missed that until now - thanks for the hint!
Wikipedia was my friend after reading your post.
Now I can officially claim to be the re-inventor of some post-Ansel photographic style from the seventies ...
 

[RobSaecker]

Seems I have missed that until now - thanks for the hint!
Wikipedia was my friend after reading your post.
Now I can officially claim to be the re-inventor of some post-Ansel photographic style from the seventies ...
 

Happy to help. 

[Scott Hargis]

With regard to the second exposure from a slightly different POV --- in some circumstances that could work - I'm going to give it a try, thanks.

With blue skies/powerlines, I often quick-select the sky, contract the selection by a few pixels, then copy/paste to a new layer. With the move tool, I move the new sky layer up/down until the wires are at least mostly occluded, then flatten. Saves a lot of work, since even a clear blue sky can be composed of some complex gradients that get screwed up via cloning and healing.

[Mark D Segal]

The various techniques described here for covering over the power lines can of course work, but they are not exempt from the potential difficulty of discontinuous tonality. One still needs to be aware of the possibility even if the surrounding sky seems quite uniform. Sometimes it is necessary to add Curves clipping masks to these covering layers and make slight adjustments to tone and colour.

[Rajan Parrikar]

A technique described by Blatner and Chavez in their excellent Photoshop book works very well.  It involves drawing a path over the power lines using the Pen tool and then stroking the path with the Clone tool by setting the target right adjacent to the path (with an appropriate brush size).  It works very well in most cases (you get better with practice).  I read of this method years ago in one of their earlier editions.  The same approach works in CS5 with the Content-aware tool (instead of Clone) although I have found the Clone tool works better in the instances I used it on.

 ps: Power lines were quickly cloned out in these images here using the technique mentioned above -

http://www.parrikar.com/blog/2009/11/29/sunset-in-saligao/


pps: Chairman Bill - with this technique it would be a cinch to remove the power lines in your photo.

[tived]

Hi

Edit
sorry, I never got to page 2 - so yes the same as the above....sorry feeling really silly....should read the full post.



I am not sure if this has been mentioned before, but if you are handy with the pen-tool ;-) then use it, to trace your power line on a dub layer (Crtl+J/Apple+J), you can trace multiple lines, then make each line into a selection (if you into the path) and then expand the selection to go just beyond the powerlines width and tada tada...use the new fill feature ....which just slipped my mind as I am not sittting infront...ahh, content aware fill ;-), this could do the trick for you ;-)

try it, it will take you alot shorter time and could be a very elegant way to solve this problem ;-)

Henrik

PS: you can send me a low res and i will have a go at it!

[louoates]

That sounds like a great idea, assumed the clouds don't move too fast while you're moving.

Actually I wonder if removing powerlines at all is such a good idea.
Of course, at times we want a nice image, and I myself often have been annoyed by that kind of "junk", which often stopped me from taking a photograph - but on the other hand its a fact that mankind does something with nature and its environment - not always good. Removing the powerlines also removes the documentation of that man-made alteration from the image.
I don't want to say its bad to do that, just want to emphasize that aspect of the whole thing and remind of not forgetting it.
E.g. one could decide not to remove this kind of artifacts,use them in ones composition instead and make something unique out of it - which would be an art of its own.

A few months ago at the request of one of my gallery, I removed an entire city of 34,000 (Apache Junction, AZ) from the side of a mountain. Every house, business, road, power line, etc. The gallery sells both large canvas versions side-by-side. Half the sales are with and half without habitation. One does what one must. It's entertaining to see people from the city finding their house on one canvas as well as those viewing the other saying, Hey, where did my house go?

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

A few months ago at the request of one of my gallery, I removed an entire city of 34,000 (Apache Junction, AZ) from the side of a mountain. Every house, business, road, power line, etc. The gallery sells both large canvas versions side-by-side. Half the sales are with and half without habitation. One does what one must. It's entertaining to see people from the city finding their house on one canvas as well as those viewing the other saying, Hey, where did my house go?

The silent nuke .... 

[tived]

You got to show us that, as I am unlikely to come visit your gallery :-) <got to is probably a little strong wording, but It would be really interesting to see>

thanks very much - it is interesting the requests people ask for when it comes to what to include and what to excluded in an excisting photo - but as long as they are willing to pay for it, they can have it ;-)

Henrik

[Chairman Bill]

Thanks everyone for your comments & advice. I'll keep note of the Photoshop guidance for when I get around to getting a copy. 'Til then, blowing up the pylons sounds like the way to go.