http://www.pbase.com/daemeon/image/82779119/medium

As you can see, the wal mart stickers on her hands are very pronounced. And while they aren't completely abhorrent, they are objectionable, merely because I have no intention of giving Wal Mart any free advertising.

I've tried cloning them out with different levels of brush hardness and opacity levels. But no matter what I do, it still comes off as looking fake.

Any help?

If you need the original file, it can be found here....

http://www.pbase.com/daemeon/image/82779119/original

Thanks.......

Get out the old clone tool.

If cloning doesn't work for you, you could try selecting some skin on the hand and copying it over the yellow.

Quick clone job, I'm sure with a bit of time you can get a better result.

This is my try. I used the patch tool and healing brush on the fully exposed sticker and the clone tool and healing brush on the other.

Really a cute picture.

dc

Thank you very much guys. I've tried the clone tool, but with less than stellar results. Can you guide me through exactly what you did? What level of hardness/softness did you choose? Where did you select the skin to be cloned from? What level opacity did you use on the duplicated layer? That sort of thing.......

Thanks for all your help.....

If cloning doesn't work for you, you could try selecting some skin on the hand and copying it over the yellow.

And how do I do that?

First of all always work on a separate layer, that way if you make mistakes they're easy to erase. At worst you can junk the layer and start again.

OK, I basically blocked in using a soft brush at 100% opacity. Sampling from her cuff area and moving inwards towards her knuckles. Once the sticker was roughed out I changed the brush opacity to about 15% and blended things in to lose the more obvious "joins"

The hand at the back of the tree was a touch more awkward. I had to set a fixed clone point from her other hand to block things out, then added the shadows with a 15% brush sampled from the dark areas near the base of her little finger.

Can't really be more specific than that, cloning is very much a matter of eyeballing things to see what works.

Thank you. Will try it when I get home.

I'd keep the stickers and sell the picture to Wal-Mart. Or al least give them permission to use it. Good first picture for a portfolio. Cute picture with a very natural pose.

dc

(exactly as Gary said, and....)

Please don't forget that this image is about the young lady (Anna :bigthmb: , it seems) and her pretty smile as she hugs a tree trunk. Her hand is of secondary interest.

So... even if your cloning remains less than "stellar" there's no need to call the observer's attention to it. If you focus the observer's attention on the face they won't even notice the (blotchy) hands.

You can increase the contrast, the lighting, the focus, the colours of the face and even crop the image to leave the hands well away from the centre.

...and welcome to RetouchPRO :bigthmb:

Rô

You could also add a vignette to further draw attention away from her hands.

I've applied one to Ro's picture to illustrate (my apologies to him if this is inappropriate).

Looks good, Gary. :bigthmb:

(exactly as Gary said, and....)

Please don't forget that this image is about the young lady (Anna :bigthmb: , it seems) and her pretty smile as she hugs a tree trunk. Her hand is of secondary interest.

So... even if your cloning remains less than "stellar" there's no need to call the observer's attention to it. If you focus the observer's attention on the face they won't even notice the (blotchy) hands.

You can increase the contrast, the lighting, the focus, the colours of the face and even crop the image to leave the hands well away from the centre.

...and welcome to RetouchPRO :bigthmb:

Rô

Thank you very much. I've actually been here for a little while. Its just taken me a minute to get around to actually posting. I had to register for that, though I've been lurking for about a year.

It seems like the clone tool is one of the hardest tools to master in Photoshop. There are combinations of brush softness, brush opacity, brush size, blend modes and brush shapes that play into getting a realistic clone onto an area. I've found the clone tool to be extremely hard to do well. Need a lot more practice.

Quick Tip when cloning.

] increases brush size, [ decreases brush size.

Shift + ] increases brush softness, Shift +[ increases brush hardness

Thanks for all the help guys. I've decided to keep the sticker at the advice of some people, and to keep a cloned copy for myself without the stickers.

This is my try. I used the patch tool and healing brush on the fully exposed sticker and the clone tool and healing brush on the other.

Really a cute picture.

dc

What does the patch tool do?