- Lesson overview
- Preparing for this lesson
- Using the Graduated Filter tool
- Using the Radial Filter tool
- Using the Adjustment Brush tool
- Removing distractions with the Spot Removal tool
- Creative color and black & white effects
- Range selection for specific control
- The Effects Panel
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Removing distractions with the Spot Removal tool
Although Lightroom lacks Photoshop’s advanced Content-Aware technology for removing and moving objects in your photos (see the section “Where Photoshop excels” in “Getting Started”), its Spot Removal tool does a nice job of removing smaller distractions such as sensor dust spots, objects with lots of open space around them (say, power lines), blemishes, and so on. It also can be used to perform some quick photo retouching of subjects.
The Spot Removal tool works in both Heal and Clone modes, which lets you determine whether you want an automatic blending of surrounding pixels or a straight copy and paste, respectively.
Removing sensor spots and syncing changes
In this exercise, you’ll use the Spot Removal tool to get rid of sensor spots, and then sync those changes to another photo with the same spots in the same locations.
Select the desert photo (sands-1.dng) in the Filmstrip. Adjust the image to your liking, following the workflow in Lesson 3 to adjust tone and color.
Activate the Spot Removal tool in the tool strip beneath the Histogram panel (it’s the second tool from the left) or press Q on your keyboard. The Spot Removal panel appears beneath the tool strip.
In the Spot Removal panel, click Heal so Lightroom blends the change with surrounding pixels. Set the Feather slider to around 10, and the Opacity to 100.
Since Lightroom automatically blends your changes with surrounding pixels when the tool is in Heal mode, you can get away with a lower Feather amount, especially when you’re removing tiny dust spots.
TIPIf you don’t see a toolbar beneath your image in the preview area, press T on your keyboard to summon it.
In the toolbar beneath the image preview, select Visualize Spots. Lightroom inverts the image in black and white so the outlines of its content are visible. Any sensor spots in the photo appear as white circles or grayish dots. Drag the Visualize Spots slider to the right to increase sensitivity and see more spots; drag to the left if you are seeing too many spots.
The Visualize Spots feature is critical for revealing spots caused by dust on your lens, sensor, or scanner. Although these tiny imperfections may not be noticeable onscreen, they often show up when you print the photo.
TIPWhen a local adjustment tool is active, you can also zoom in by pressing the Spacebar on your keyboard as you click the photo, and then continue to hold it down to move around. When a local adjustment tool isn’t active, simply clicking the photo zooms in and out.
Zoom in to the photo by clicking 1:1 in the Navigator panel at the upper left. Hold down the Spacebar on your keyboard, and drag to reposition the photo so you can see one of the spots.
Move your cursor over one of the spots, resize it so it’s slightly bigger than the spot itself, and then click the spot to remove it.
TIPYou can resize your cursor by pressing the Left Bracket key ([) on your keyboard to decrease size or the Right Bracket key (]) to increase it.
Lightroom copies content from a nearby area in the photo and uses it to remove the spot. You see two circles: One marks the area you clicked (the destination), and another marks the area Lightroom used to remove the spot (the source), with an arrow that points to where the spot used to be (shown below left).
NOTEBecause the Tool Overlay menu in the toolbar beneath the photo is set to Auto here, the circles disappear when you mouse away from the preview area, just like the pins of the Graduated Filter, Radial Filter, and Adjustment Brush tools. To change this behavior, click the Tool Overlay menu and choose Always, Never, or Selected (to see only the selected fix).
If you don’t like the results, try changing the area Lightroom used for the fix, or try changing the tool size. To do that, click the destination circle to select the spot and then:
Press the Forward Slash (/) key on your keyboard to have Lightroom pick a different source area. Keep tapping the key until the removal looks good to you.
Manually change the source area by moving your cursor over the source circle and, when your cursor turns into a tiny hand, dragging the circle to another location in the photo (shown above right).
To resize the destination or the source, move your cursor over either circle, and when your cursor changes to a double-sided arrow, drag outward to increase or inward to decrease the size of the circles. Alternatively, you can drag the Size slider in the Spot Removal panel.
Of course, you can always start over by removing the fix. To do that, select the destination circle and then press the Delete/Backspace key on your keyboard.
TIPTo thoroughly inspect a photo for spots (if, say, you’ll print it or submit it to a stock photography service), press the Home key on your keyboard to start at the upper-left corner of the photo. Press the Page Down button on the keyboard to page through the photo from top to bottom in a column-like pattern.
Spacebar-drag to reposition the photo, and repeat these instructions to remove all the spots.
Turn off Visualize Spots in the toolbar to return to regular view, and see if all the spots are gone.
You can remove spots in either view, or you can switch back and forth between views as you work by turning Visualize Spots on and off.
To sync these changes with the other desert photos, Shift-click the last desert photo in the Filmstrip and then click the Sync button at the lower right. In the resulting dialog, click Check None, select Spot Removal, and then click Synchronize.
Be sure to inspect the other photos to ensure the spots were successfully removed. If, by chance, the spots weren’t in exactly the same place in the other photos, you can reposition the removals by dragging the destination circles.
Don’t put away the Spot Removal tool yet, because you’ll use it in the next exercise.
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Removing objects from photos
Now let’s take a look at how you can use the Spot Removal tool to remove slightly larger objects by dragging.
NOTE
You don’t have to perform the adjustment workflow on this photo, but it’s good practice.
Select the clone-1.raf photo in the Filmstrip, and follow the adjustment workflow in Lesson 3 to adjust the tone and color to your liking.
In the Spot Removal panel, increase Feather to 28 or so. This softens the transition edges a little more so the removal looks realistic.
TIPYou can adjust the Feather slider after you drag to remove an object, which is helpful to add more or less smoothing in the transition area.
Use the instructions in the previous section to set your brush size, and then drag to remove the top portion of the couple in the center of the photo. As you drag, Lightroom marks the area with white. When you release your mouse button, the white disappears and you see an outline of where you dragged, the destination area. The source area is also visible as an outline, with an arrow pointing to the destination. You can reposition either area by dragging the pin inside each outline. In this example, try dragging the source area to the base of another statue.
TIPRemember that you can also press the Forward Slash (/) key on your keyboard to have Lightroom pick a different source area if you don’t like the initial results.
Once the top portion of the couple is removed, brush the bottom half of them to remove it and use a new source area. This figure shows all the pins it took to remove all the tourists.
Assess your work by turning the panel’s switch off and on. If necessary, click one of the pins to select the removal, and reposition the source area to make it better match the tone and color.
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