Elements 7 - Scene Cleaner

[rrogers44]

Hello,

I was trying to use the scene cleaner to remove some bystanders from a group shot. The problem I was having is that even when I make the eraser very small (1 pixel) the software selects a large region, thus capturing other bystanders.

Does anyone know a way to limit the region size that the software selects? Ideally, I could just paint away the people rather than it selecting huge blocks.

Pretty cool overall, but just one small gripe.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Rich

[frank abramonte]

Rich, would this help.

http://www.adobe.com/products/psprelements/vector/scenecleaner/pse_scene_cleaner.html

[rrogers44]

Thanks Frank. This is a tutorial, and I understand how to do the action.

The problem is that just a small line or dot on the source picture results in a huge chunk of the source being shown on the final. What I am looking for is a way to control the region size.

If you play with the tool you will see a an option to "show regions". When you do this, you can see that the region may actually be 10x larger than the area you selected. I understand why it does this to try and makes things faster. But when there is a small margin, it does not work.

Thanks,

Rich

[frank abramonte]

Rich, have you tried using the clone tool to eliminate the bystanders"
Also, have you tried to reset your preferences?
On a mac it's reboot while holding down the cmd+Option+Shift.
When you're prompted to reset preferences click ok.

[johnrellis]

Why don't you upload the photos to www.pixentral.com (http://www.pixentral.com) and indicate what you want cleaned and where the problem is? Then one or more of us could give it a shot and perhaps give some suggestions.

[rrogers44]

Rich, have you tried using the clone tool to eliminate the bystanders"
Also, have you tried to reset your preferences?
On a mac it's reboot while holding down the cmd+Option+Shift.
When you're prompted to reset preferences click ok.


Hi Frank,

I would prefer to use the scene cleaner. I can use the clone tool, but the scene cleaner can be much faster.

I can try resetting preferences. Not sure if that changes anything. I think the tool is working as designed. Just need a way to fine tune it. Of course, that may not exist.

Thanks,

Rich

[rrogers44]

Why don't you upload the photos to www.pixentral.com (http://www.pixentral.com) and indicate what you want cleaned and where the problem is? Then one or more of us could give it a shot and perhaps give some suggestions.


Here they are John. I am trying to remove the two women in the background. Since my shots are not spaced in time far enough, they are close to the same spot. So I need fine tuning. I had some more dramatic differences but have since deleted them.

Here are the pics.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1BfpCVYANTLrjw0NH0MHIweX2TMEPe0

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=12V8xT84Hfs2MQfI8g5qUWDhFli8Q


I have fixed the pic using a combo of scene cleaner and clone stamp. Just curious if it can be done using just the scene cleaner. So other than the scene cleaner, don't try any other means.

Here is my fix.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1nuRp8ZLz9eNM7W4vx4174dCVJaxWe0

And just so you know I am not crazy, here is a screenshot. The dark blue is my selection. The light blue is the part that PSE selects. It is getting the girls head in addition to the girl in the background. Just looking for a way to fine tune.
file:///C:/Users/RICHRO%7E1/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1hxTNDOBxEXyaP2WOsXteZHGWm1It
file:///C:/Users/RICHRO%7E1/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.jpg
Thanks for your efforts.

Rich

[johnrellis]

Ah, I think I see. Remember these part of the instructions: "3. Use the Pencil tool on the left Source window to draw a line or two over the part of the scene that you want moved to the Final window."

So use the pencil tool on the girls' faces to be sure they're brought over and not excluded along with the background women. For example:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1rCvhMmd48EfUPAWZ55W1G2h5mZChd_thumb.png (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1rCvhMmd48EfUPAWZ55W1G2h5mZChd)

Here are all my strokes:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1eO9G8hc7QNgW7tmBlMemYKD5Q5Dm_thumb.png (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1eO9G8hc7QNgW7tmBlMemYKD5Q5Dm)

And here's the final result:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1K7WeLm7qYabWaTfIRAZi2Fktzvphh_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1K7WeLm7qYabWaTfIRAZi2Fktzvphh)

Note that there are still a couple pieces of the background women that need to be cleaned up with the clone tool -- they overlapped in the two photos and thus there's no other background for the tool to bring in.

I'm a big fan of the PSE Photomerge tools -- Group Shot, Scene Cleaner, and Panorama. I think a lot of long-time users of PSE don't realize their power or think of them as "newbie" tools not suitable for "real" use, even though they can produce great results much faster than using the more manual methods. I use the Group Shot to combine multiple shots of, say, a skier into a single photo, and it's much faster than using the old selection/layer method, and it generally produces better results faster.

However, to get the best results, the tools do generally require more fine-tuning of your strokes than the Adobe demos would have you believe. I generally set the pencil size pretty small (e.g. 5 pixels) and stroke out more precisely what I want to include and exclude.

[rrogers44]

Hi John,

No I read that part, just didn't understand the full scope. It did not occur to me to use the pencil tool on the faces. I kept trying to use the erase tool to try to get them to not transfer.

Crystal clear now I think.

Also, I need to space my pics out longer to give me more options in scene cleaner.

Thanks for your help.

Rich