Michael Schellman: How To Make Someone Dissappear

In one of my classes I talk about the Nag Hammadi Library, discovered in 1945. I wanted a photo for my presentation, that showed where the discovery was made. I searched the web and found this image. This is a great picture, but I don't like the people in the foreground. Is there anything I can do to get rid of those them? Thankfully I had access to the tools in Photoshop. Below is a detailed description of what I did.

Open the Photo:

The easiest way to open your photo in Photoshop is by dragging it from your folder into the open Photoshop window. You can also locate it using by locating the word “File” on left hand side of the horizontal toolbar at the top of your screen and selecting the word “Open” this will open a window that will allow you to browse for your photo. When you find your file, double click it.

Zoom In:

The first thing you want to do is zoom in to the area of the photo which you want to edit. Working closer will help you to focus on the task at hand and do more precise editing.

First, select the zoom tool (that’s the icon that looks like a magnifying glass on lower half of your vertical tool bar, which is on the left hand side of your screen). Now when you move your curser back onto the photo you will notice that it looks like a magnifying glass. This magnifying glass will allow you to selectively zoom in or zoom out of any part of your photo. The control to change your zooming options is located on the left hand side of the horizontal toolbar which is at the top of your screen. There you will find two magnifying glass icons side by side one with a plus the other with a minus. The one which is presently selected will have a white box around it. Make sure it is the one that has a plus sign is selected. Now move your curser back onto the photo, to the center of the person or group of people you want to make disappear. Now click the left mouse button. This will enlarge the area you are going to edit. The more you click the photo, closer you will zoom into your photo. The size of the area you want to view should display your subjects prominently in the center of the screen, but leave a fair amount of the surrounding space as well. If you happen to zoom in too far, a quick way to back out is to use your keyboard. Hold down the control key, and then click the minus key until the view on your screen is back to the right size.

Erasing:

Next select the eraser tool (this icon looks like an eraser and is found in the middle of your vertical tool bar). Now, as you move the curser back onto the photo, you will notice that your curser has become a circle. This circle allows you to indicate the area you want to erase. Move the circle over the people in your photograph. Ask yourself if this size circle is the right size to erase the people in your photo. You want the eraser to be able to move around inside the contours of the person or group without erasing too much of the background. If the circle is the wrong size go back to your horizontal toolbar at the top of your screen. On the left hand side, where the magnifying glasses were, you will see the word “bush” and a circle with a number under it, and next to that you will see a small black triangle pointing downward. This triangle indicates the presence of a dropdown menu. Click the triangle to open the menu and change your options. The options available allow you to adjust the size and “hardness” of the eraser. Hard edges are clean, soft edges are fuzzy. Because there are a lot of rocks in the photo, you probably want to choose a hard edge and it looks like the number 13 is a good size eraser that will allow you to stay inside the contours of the people you want to erase. You can make these changes using the slide bars at the top of the menu or by clicking one of the options displayed on the bottom. Now move your curser back onto your photo and holding down the left mouse button erase the people in your photo. Try to stay in the contours of and not to erase too much of the surrounding image.

Sampling:

The next thing you will want to do is sample some of the background and use it to fill in the space left behind by your eraser. Natural environments (like the leaves on trees, or rocks on the face of a cliff,) are fractal in nature, which means that one area looks pretty much like another making it very easy to disguise any cutting and pasting you do. Decide which part of the photo you want to fill in first. Let’s start with the cave. Now locate the marquis tool at the top of your vertical tool bar (this one looks like a rectangle, circle, or some other shape made up of dashed lines). By right clicking this icon you open a menu that allows you to change from one shape to another. Select the shape that you want to work with. For the cave, let’s chose the rectangle. Right click the rectangle icon in the menu. Now move your curser back onto the photo holding your left mouse button down click and drag till you form a rectangle selecting the area where the heads of the erased figures cross over into the cave. When you let go of the left mouse button you will have a rectangle that you can move around with the directional arrows on your keyboard. Hold down the right arrow key and move the marquis to an area of the cave’s opening that does not contain the erased area. Now with your mouse, select “edit” from the toolbar at the top of your screen. Select copy from the drop down menu. Now use the arrow keys to move your marquis back to the area over the place where the subject’s heads used to be. Go back to the edit menu and select paste. You have now successfully filled in a portion of your photo and are one step closer to removing any trace of your subjects. You can continue sampling areas of your photo by copying and pasting until you fill in all the white space created by your eraser. Use good judgment, do not sample too large of an area or else your editing will be too obvious, select the right shape tools. If the marquis tools are not precise enough try one of the lasso tools (on the vertical tool bar, right below the marquis). If you make a mistake you can undo it by going to the edit menu and selecting step backward. This is a great feature that will allow you to undo changes you have made all the way back to your original photo.

Layers:
Before you go on to edit more of your photograph, I should mention something about layers. On the right hand side of your screen you will see a panel that says “layers” and shows a thumbnail of your image and another thumbnail of the area you just cut and paste. Photoshop allows you to edit your layers separately, and to eliminate layers that you no longer want, without affecting the rest of your work. This is a really helpful feature, but it can get frustrating if you are trying to select something when the wrong layer is selected. For instance, when you go on to sample the next part of your photo if you are not on the layer of your photo called “background,” you will get a message that says “could not complete the copy command because the selected area is empty”. For our purposes we will not be using the layers function. Under the “layers” menu on the toolbar at the top of your screen select “flatten image”. You will do this each time you cut and paste on your image.

Smudge:

Overall your cutting and pasting has pretty convincingly filled in the erased area. But there are probably some areas that still need some touching up. For this you want to use the smudge tool. The smudge tool is found on your vertical tool bar under the icon that looks like a droplet. Right click on the icon and click on the tool that looks like a hand with the index finger pointing downward. This is your smudge tool. You can use this to blur and smooth out edges where your editing is obvious. This tool works a lot like the eraser tool and you can adjust the size and hardness of the smudge tool in the same way (by locating the work brush on your horizontal tool bar and selecting your option from the dropdown menu).