PSP8: Edit photo with random background

[hallsey]

Hi all! I'm using Paint Shop Pro 8. I'm hardly proficient, so talk to me like I'm four years old.

I would like to remove the arm that's in this photo. Usually, I would use the Clone Brush, but with the random background, that didn't work. I then tried copying and pasting selections from other parts of the grass and flowers, but even after blending in the edges with the Clone Brush, it doesn't look right. I even tried selecting a flower cup with the Freehand Selection Tool (lasso) and pasting it in several times, but the eye isn't fooled. It's obviously the same flower cup over and over. LOL Plus every patch of grass seems to have its own shade of green, and so grafting patches in from other places looks odd.

Also, just as the hand reaches the little girl, there are quite a few stray strands of her hair over the hand. Is there a way to save the strands or do they pretty much have to go? It would be very laborious to try to make a selection out of them!

How would you fix this in Paint Shop Pro 8? I want to do it myself, so I'm hoping someone can tell me how they would approach it. Thanks a lot!

[pixeltek]

hey hallsey, beautiful girl...this took about 2 minutes...with more time you could perfect it...i just copied/pasted the flowers from the left side and arranged them on the right side.

[hallsey]

Thanks, pixeltek, she's my little niece.

I see what the problem is. Since I knew where the corrections I made were, I couldn't fool myself. But I see now that if I just look at the picture, it looks pretty natural. Thanks for the help.

[pixeltek]

you're welcome! i agree and know exactly what you mean. to an observer of the photo, the focus is your niece, and on closer inspection it wouldn't really cross someone's mind that the flowers were altered.

[hallsey]

So here's what I came up with. The flowers look fine, but I'm not satisfied with her hair on the lower right side. The line seems too sharp, but I don't know how to make a flyaway hair effect.

[duwayne]

Very nice photo and beautiful girl little girl. Lots of personality showing. I fine all the flowers a little over-powering so did a portrait 5x7 crop and used a gradient to mask to blur the background a little. Also a little sharpening to the foreground. Just something to think about (besides removing the arm)

[hallsey]

Thanks, duwayne. It looks better cropped, definitely. To separate the foreground from the background, did you selecting the area with the lasso tool, or how did you do it?

Meanwhile, I took out two arms from this picture, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Sure took a while, though.

[duwayne]

For something like this, I generally use Quick Mask with a medium hardness brush. Only take a few seconds.