Remove hockey netting

[erovner]

Hi all,

I took some photos at a recent Flyers/Senators hockey game. Unfortunately, I didn't have the best location to shoot, as one of the nets protecting flying pucks from entering the stands obscured some of my shots. I'm trying to figure out how to remove the netting so I can touch up the rest of the photo. Any ideas? I don't even know where to start on this one. I heard about Fourier Transform but it's only available as a Windows plugin and not Mac.

You can see the netting if you look at the black part of the jerseys. I only attached a cropped, low-res version of the image, but the netting covers the ENTIRE picture. Any help is appreciated!

[irshgrlkc]

Apparently there is a Mac version of Fourier. Check out this thread with links...

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/97390-post34.html

[erovner]

Thanks for the link. I played around with the tool and did some forum searches to see some examples.

Given that I don't see any stars (except for the middle one), can I assume this technique won't work with my picture? Or am I totally misunderstanding or going about the process incorrectly?

[Lasa]

I ran it thru Noiseware then added grain...
left it kinda noisy.
Lasa

[Cassidy]

admitting this is fairly rough, I had no luck with fft on this one, so ran a median with a mask attempting to preserve the edges

[mistermonday]

It appears that you have saved the image in the highest possible jpg compression setting of 1 (the image is approx 4 times the resolution that it should be for posting on RP). If you zoom in, the images is made up large jpg blocks so it is no wonder that an fft will not work.
You should try resizing to 72 dpi and saving at a higher jpg quality or post a higher resolution image somewhere (like imageshack.us.com).
Regards, Murray

[Swampy]

I just went in with a black paint brush and repainted his shirt.

[DCobb]

This is my try. I used the spot healing brush to clean up a small area of the black and then used that area as a source for the clone tool. Also, used the healing brush and patch tool. How well this would translate to a higher rez image, I don't know.

dc

[Daviskw]

Hi there

I tried Image Analyzer on the screen, it only blurred it somewhat.

I used curves to increase contrast that got rid of some

Blur then painting with a brush set to darken or lighten.

Healing brush on some areas of the men

Then the patch tool on the ice.

Butch

[chillin]

I used Scratch Remover in PSP + Neat Image + Focus Magic

[erovner]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

It appears that you have saved the image in the highest possible jpg compression setting of 1 (the image is approx 4 times the resolution that it should be for posting on RP). If you zoom in, the images is made up large jpg blocks so it is no wonder that an fft will not work.
You should try resizing to 72 dpi and saving at a higher jpg quality or post a higher resolution image somewhere (like imageshack.us.com).
Regards, Murray

Woops, my apologies. I thought the only restriction was file size.

For those that want to see the original, I uploaded it here:
http://www.ericrovner.com/~erovner/IMG_0225_1.jpg

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try some tonight and let you know how I fare.

[mistermonday]

Eric, no need to apologize, there are no restrictions on image size or resolution - only the file size limit of 100KB. However, if your image is much larger than 6 x 8 " at 72 DPI, then you will be forced to compress it more to get the file size below 100KB. Unfortunately with jpg images, the more you compress, the worse the quality of your image. As you compress to much, you begin to see large squares as you zoom in on the image (also termed jpg pixelation). The damage is not reversible. Retouching those images is more difficult and usually produce good results.
Regards, Murray