# Problems with PS Content Aware Fill



## AVLMike (Apr 14, 2020)

Hello, all. In the first months of the year I was not doing much editing, so I didn't notice the new version of PS Content Aware Fill until the past few days. I looked up a couple of on-line tutorials and it appeared to be very straight forward for simple deletions. Unfortunately, I've had nothing but trouble trying to do the simplest of deletions. My issues have included: 1) edits/deletions just not occurring, 2) preview window not working (i.e., no preview of proposed deletion), 3) area selected by the lasso tool being slightly but noticeably smaller than defined by the tool's action, 4) inability to correct a correction, i.e., when I got a result which did not enclose the target area, if I again tried to take out unwanted areas I got a smudged/damaged look in the frame (this is probably some kind of layer issue). Has anyone else run into this? Web searches so far have not indicated any problems with this tool. I've contacted Adobe but they have not yet responded (posted 12 hours ago). Any help here would be gratefully accepted.


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## clee01l (Apr 14, 2020)

AVLMike said:


> Hello, all. In the first months of the year I was not doing much editing, so I didn't notice the new version of PS Content Aware Fill until the past few days. I looked up a couple of on-line tutorials and it appeared to be very straight forward for simple deletions. Unfortunately, I've had nothing but trouble trying to do the simplest of deletions. My issues have included: 1) edits/deletions just not occurring, 2) preview window not working (i.e., no preview of proposed deletion), 3) area selected by the lasso tool being slightly but noticeably smaller than defined by the tool's action, 4) inability to correct a correction, i.e., when I got a result which did not enclose the target area, if I again tried to take out unwanted areas I got a smudged/damaged look in the frame (this is probably some kind of layer issue). Has anyone else run into this? Web searches so far have not indicated any problems with this tool. I've contacted Adobe but they have not yet responded (posted 12 hours ago). Any help here would be gratefully accepted.



I find content aware fill works best when the image has been flattened to a single layer. (Or duplicated as a single layer).
Select the area to be filed and a little area surrounding that.
Choose content aware fill and in the preview, take out (erase) any of the selected parts of the imager that do not contribute any information to the area to be filled. 
If parts of the filled area do not produce the intended result repeat the process as outline above but select only the part of the area that was not acceptable the first time.


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## AVLMike (Apr 14, 2020)

Thanks for your quick response. I probably should have indicated that I am virtually always moving photos from LR to PS to be worked on, not starting with PS. So, in this case,  just now I moved a photo from LR to PS to utilize the Content Aware Fill tool. Initially, the photo is on a background layer. To date, I've gotten different advice off the web as to editing a Background layer  (i.e., whether that can be done at all), so in this case just now I tried editing the layer as a background layer and then modified that layer to Layer 0 and subsequently Layer 1 (by clicking on the Background layer twice to rename it both times). Content Aware Fill did not work properly in any of these cases: I used the lasso tool to identify the target with a good margin and the result was the same , with a partially completed erasure, the remains of the target still showing up as smudged remnants. In this case, I was able to preview the result but the target while clearly in the lasso was not fully erased.  I'm probably missing something obvious here but I'm at a loss for what I'm doing wrong or incompletely.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 14, 2020)

You appear to be using the new Edit > Content Aware Fill. In that case, you can start from the Background layer without duplicating it - that's because there is now an option to output the results onto a new layer. I always choose this.

This tool is quite new and sometimes the old Edit > Fill works better, in which case it's a good precaution to work on duplicate layers. But with the new  Edit > Content Aware Fill what  I think works best is to select the thing I want to remove, using any one of a number of tools (quick selection, lasso, etc). If my selection is sharp edged, I might use  the Select > Modify menu and expand the selection a few pixels and maybe feather it too. So that's your "good margin". Once in the Edit > Content Aware Fill, you do need to paint away really irrelevant areas so they aren't used in the repair.


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## AVLMike (Apr 14, 2020)

Thanks for your comments. I didn't know that the old version of Edit>Fill was still available in PS; I thought the new Content Aware Fill was the only option. I'll need to check on that further. In the meantime, I'll keep playing with the new version, but at this point it is more annoying than helpful. thanks again.


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## clee01l (Apr 15, 2020)

Basically, John and I are saying the same thing. I always start with a duplicate of the background layer just because I want a fallback position in PS 
I am pleased with “Content Aware Fill” and did not use the old fill function. The only other comment that I would make is the you want to select only the content in the surrounding area that you want to use as fill in the area that you want replaced. 


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## Gnits (Apr 15, 2020)

I think the latest content aware feature is superb.  I ran into various usability issues until  I adopt the following approach.

1. Before I use the tool, I always create a new layer which is a merged copy of all the layers I have of the document.
2. There is an option to have the edits presented as a new layer rather than edit the targeted layer. I always pick adjustment on a new layer option.
3. When I am finished the edit, I turn on and off the new adjusted layer. If I am happy.... I merge the adjustment layer with the copy of all previous layers.
4. Repeat if necessary.

It is really worth learning how to use the brush feature to include / exclude areas for the AI engine to consider.

It is also worth considering if you should do such edits as the first or last step in editing an image.  The answer may depend on your editing style and the nature of the image/adjustment required.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 15, 2020)

I use it slightly differently. As I wrote before, I always use the new layer option but I keep this,  discarding any merged copy which is sometimes only the relevant part of the image. I like to keep the fill separately - not least because I often notice something I might do better.

It's too early to be sure, but I agree about the brush but also find better results come from not making one's initial selection too sharp.


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## clee01l (Apr 15, 2020)

I think Gnits, John and I ares basically doing variations on the same approach, but none of this is answering the OPs problem. 

I think I need more information from the OP. How is this not working for you if you are following the basic approach that we have outlined?

An example that I remember was removing a power line across a building. It worked very well when I was removing in the sky even with clouds present. When I got to a crenelated tower, the results were not so good 


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## johnbeardy (Apr 15, 2020)

Good point, Cletus. So "My issues have included: 1) edits/deletions just not occurring, 2) preview window not working (i.e., no preview of proposed deletion), 3) area selected by the lasso tool being slightly but noticeably smaller than defined by the tool's action, 4) inability to correct a correction, "

Those first 2 make me wonder if there might be a GPU related issue. When the dialog starts, or if you fine tune the source window green overlay, do you see this spinner - it can be brief. And is there anything interesting in Preferences / Performance?


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## AVLMike (Apr 20, 2020)

First -- sorry for the silence at this end. I had some non-photographic business to attend to. There was quite a bit of contribution here which I missed. In the meantime, I've tried multiple times using a couple of different tutorials to see what it is I'm doing wrong in using this tool, and it may just be that I lack practice.  It looks like I should have made clear that I am primarily (90%) a LR user, not a PS user. So, in this case for example, I would " send" a photograph to PS just to remove something from the frame, then send it back to LR for further work. For the time being, I'm just going to revert to using the prior version of content aware fill. Thanks for your time and expertise.


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## johnbeardy (Apr 21, 2020)

Persevere! The old Edit>Fill CAF  is still good and can be effectively non-destructive if you follow sensible practices with layers. But the new one is also good, lets you see / control what it's doing, and is now sensible with layers. But it is new and I would expect it to improve, so it would be a shame if you got stuck with old-fashioned habits!


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