Copying Color

[acmatters]

Okay, I'm really new at this, so forgive me if I don't know the lingo. I have a photo of someone lining up a putt on a golf green. Someone stuck their hand into view as the photo was being taken. I got rid of the hand using the eraser tool. Now I want to take a section of the green and cover up that white space with it. Is there a way to do that? I first tried it with the eyedropper tool and recoloring it with that, but obviously that was too obvious because I only had one color of green in my paintbrush. I want to replace that white space with natural-looking colors of the golf green and the color variants.

I hope I'm making myself clear on what I want to do. I really need to take a class in this. I have the "Classrom In A Book" and even purchased a CD-ROM tutorial, but have a difficult time putting the lessons learned in either to practical use. This golf picture for example. If anyone can help, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[Ellen]

Hi,
Some one most likely will be around soon who is better at explaining things than I am but meanwhile give the clone tool a try.
Edit Better yet you could subscribe and get the videos and tutorials. They are quite worth the cost.

[Ward Grant]

Welcome to the forum.

You should be able to copy a section of the greens and place that over your "hole". If you have the original, before erasing, you can do the same with this picture, if you wish.

Use the lasso tool, draw over the greens area. An irregular shape often blends better than a rigid one. Also setting the feather box to 1 or 2 pixels helps.Once you complete the shape, you should see some "marching ants".

A Cntl+J (Windows) at this point will copy the selected area to a new layer.

You can then use the Move Tool to position this selection. If you need, you can grab the corners and stretch the selection to better cover the area.

Hope this helps. Post back if you need more help.

[Bayla]

Another way depending on how big the piece you want to cover is would be to make a selection of the green with the rectangular marquee tool then hold down the Alt key and drag with the move tool to cover the space. You'd probably need to clean up the edges with the healing brush or something.

Bayla

[acmatters]

Thanks so much for the quick replies. I'll give it a go and let you know how I come out. :)

[acmatters]

Okay, I don't get the marching ants. I clicked and dragged a shape with the lasso tool and let up on the mouse. Is that when I'm supposed to see the marching ants? And when I hit control J at that point, the photo goes haywire and my lasso shape goes all over the place. I'm sure I'm doing something silly here; just not sure what it is. Thanks again!

Never mind ... I got it! I guess I just wasn't closing up the lasso or something before I tried to go on to the next step because my 3rd attempt was a success. I can tell where the blending was done, but I don't think anyone else would be able to. Thanks so much, Ward. I'm also going to play around with your technique too, Bayla. Again, I appreciate your help!

[Ward Grant]

It does take a bit of practice-you need to close the shape for the ants to appear. Or, as suggested in another post, you can use the marquee tool (either rectangle or round) to make your initial selection.

Edit-Looks like you were typing as I was. Glad you got it figured out. You can try adjusting the Blending Mode or Opacity Levels to see if this blends better. Look at the top of the Layer Palette with the new layer active.

[Bayla]

The lasso tool? That is for making selections around something. When you've gone round you click back on your starting point and then you get 'marching ants' around your selection.

Bayla

[Wendy]

Hi ...

To tidy up the edge of the new area just get the eraser, lower the opacity and then go around the edges ... that should blend it in a little better :)

Wendy

[NRiceDesigns]

Hi Acmatters & welcome to the forum. I've learned more here than in my library of books. Let us know when you start your gallery.