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Hack 67 Power-Line Vanishing Trick

The Clone Stamp in Photoshop Elements is a
pretty good tool for removing unsightly wires from your scenes.
Photoshop 7 and CS have an amazing piece of magic called the Patch
tool. Either way, wires be gone!

Wires, wires, everywhere wires. Most folks might
not realize just how many wires are strung around the landscape. But
if you have a photographer's eye and enjoy shooting
landscapes, you understand what I'm talking about.
It can be challenging to find an interesting roadside shot that
doesn't involve wires. Have you ever found that
nearly perfect shot: nice landscape elements, beautiful colors,
intense sky, and some magic light illuminating the entire scene? You
hit the brakes, grab the digicam, and start clicking the shutter
button. It's then you notice the wires crisscrossing
the horizon. What do you do? Lament the unspoiled vistas of times
past and give up?

Keep shooting! There's a Photoshop CS tool to save
the day: the Patch tool. Prior to Photoshop 7 and still in Photoshop
Elements, the Clone Stamp (rubber stamp) was the savior of choice to
eliminate distracting elements. Even though it's
amazing, photographers found it difficult to match subtle tone
differences, in skies, for example, where power wires often reside.
Then, Adobe added the Patch tool to enhance this type of retouching.
And what a good addition the Patch tool is. It's
faster and much better at blending subtle tones.

In this example, I was out for a roadside walk and heard the geese
before I saw them. They were headed my way, in formation, on their
way to their next feeding grounds. I started shooting, looking
through the viewfinder, following them with the lens. After I loaded
the images onto the computer, however, I noticed that some shots
included unsightly utility wires, as shown in Figure 6-11.

Figure 6-11. Distracting wires, marring the shot's appeal

Now, I have a few options for dealing with this image. I could just
crop the wires out. But I don't want to do that,
because I would lose precious sky real estate that I want to
preserve. When there's motion in a composition,
it's best to leave some room in front of the motion
so that it has a place to go. If I were to crop out the sky in front
of the geese, you would experience a feeling of claustrophobia when
viewing the picture. Subconsciously, you might think,
"they don't have any place to
fly."

If I were working in Photoshop Elements instead of CS, the Clone
Stamp would be the tool of choice. You'd think that
those little ole wires would be easy to remove, but blue-sky tones
are subtle, so they're difficult to retouch
seamlessly.

The trick with the Clone Stamp is to Option-click (to choose the area
to clone from) as close to the wire as possible, as shown in Figure 6-11, to match your tones. Sometimes, this takes a
bit of trial and error, but it can be done. In fact, for years, that
was our only option.

But if you have Photoshop 7 or CS, select the Patch tool, which is
located in the
Healing Brush (Bandage)
menu. Click and hold your mouse on the triangle in the Healing Brush
tool to open the menu of hidden tools. Select the Patch tool, as
shown in Figure 6-12. In the Tool Options bar (in
the top menu) select Source. Place the Patch tool cursor near the
area to be retouched and click, hold, and drag to select the entire
adjustment area, just as you would make a selection with the Lasso
tool. For best results, keep the selection area as small as possible,
but make it large enough to include all of portions that need to be
eliminated, as shown in Figure 6-12.

Figure 6-12. Patch Tool selection in Photoshop CS

Once the area is selected, place the cursor within the selection area
(the source) and drag it to another area of the
picture (the destination) that is a similar
match in color and texture. Release the mouse button to replace the
source area with your destination area. Then, choose Select/Deselect.
Photoshop doesn't just paint over the source area
with the destination area; it actually blends together the qualities
of the two areastexture, brightness, and colorall while
eliminating those unwanted wires. It's almost
magical.

Alternatively, you can use the opposite process. Select Destination
in the Tool Options bar. Drag the Patch tool cursor around a clean
area, drag it to the area to be retouched, release the mouse, and
deselect. The source area covers and blends into the destination
area. This process is helpful when there are several similar areas to
be retouched.

The Clone Stamp tool is still probably the better choice for areas
with patterns, multiple colors, and textures. But when you can select
similar source and destination areas, the Patch tool provides a
quick, high-quality result. Try it the next time those dreaded wires
intrude into your masterpiece.

Jan Blanchard