# Remove an object with spot removal?



## Biff (Nov 10, 2018)

How could one remove the camera? Using the spot removal does not work very well. Instead of the camera there should be the background color.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 10, 2018)

It should be fairly easy to do that with the spot removal tool, but you probably have to switch to 'Clone' in this example. Setting the Feather to 100 is also not a good idea. To avoid getting hard edges it should be enough to set it to 20 - 30 or so.


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## johnbeardy (Nov 10, 2018)

Well, you can do a lot of such edits with LR's _spot correction_ tool, but it's not automatic. Unlike spots, we're dealing with a variety of unpredictable shapes.

My tips:

Don't just click the spot, use Ctrl+drag (or Cmd+drag on Mac) to point to where you want to copy from
Switch the view to Never - in the toolbar or use H
Be prepared to use a number of spot correction to make the end result realistic


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## Biff (Nov 10, 2018)

> It should be fairly easy to do that with the spot removal tool, but you probably have to switch to 'Clone' in this example. Setting the Feather to 100 is also not a good idea. To avoid getting hard edges it should be enough to set it to 20 - 30 or so.


Yes, the feather setting was wron.

With these settings there is an edge, a spot:





This looks quite good:










Before:







> Switch the view to Never - in the toolbar or use H


When I press H nothing seems to happen. What does never refere to?



> Be prepared to use a number of spot correction to make the end result realistic


So use more than one spot over the same spot? Or around a spot? I cannot get a second spot over another one, only side by side.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 10, 2018)

Biff said:


> When I press H nothing seems to happen. What does never refere to?


It _never_ shows the tool overlay (the circles or the shapes). It's at the bottom left, just below the image.







Biff said:


> I cannot get a second spot over another one, only side by side.


You can after you hide the tool overlay.


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## Biff (Nov 11, 2018)

Ah yes, now I see, thank you.

So you have to turn off and on the overlay to move the spots to be copied from and to set spots one over the other.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 11, 2018)

Biff said:


> Ah yes, now I see, thank you.
> 
> So you have to turn off and on the overlay to move the spots to be copied from and to set spots one over the other.


When you turn off the overlay, you can clone/heal anywhere, including on a place where you cloned/healed before. If you want to move a source spot, then indeed you have to turn the overlay on again.


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## johnbeardy (Nov 11, 2018)

Biff said:


> So you have to turn off and on the overlay to move the spots to be copied from and to set spots one over the other.



Yes, that is exactly the point. I tend to prefer Auto, so I can move the cursor off the image and see the image without the points, but I'll switch to Hidden for more complex cloning like this.

John


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## Biff (Nov 11, 2018)

Alright, thank you very much!


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## Biff (Nov 12, 2018)

Why does the spot not get white like the spot to be copied from?















With "Clone" it looks like this:





And how could I make it white / become the same / similar background?

And how could I avoid that the spot to be copied from is place outside the frame / crop?


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## Umberto Cocca (Nov 13, 2018)

I notice you used several brush strokes to fill that patch there. Have you tried to cover the whole spot with a single mouse "press and release" ? 

Sent using Tapatalk


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

These tiny screenshots are difficult to judge, but the normal way for doing this for me would be to first *clone* the entire spot (using an area quite a bit larger than the dark spot). Then I would use *heal* to repair the edges that cloning no doubt will leave.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

> I notice you used several brush strokes to fill that patch there. Have you tried to cover the whole spot with a single mouse "press and release" ?


Yes, I tried both, so a single mouse stroke also.

I would have to place a few cloning spots because there is too few are to use a single one:













Does not look perfect but much better:





Sometimes when I add a spot (over other spots) the background gets darken again although the copy spot is on white area. Why is that?

When Lightroom automatically places a copy spot outside the crop, how can I get that spot into the crop then?


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

Biff said:


> When Lightroom automatically places a copy spot outside the crop, how can I get that spot into the crop then?


Press the Slash (/) key. That asks Lightroom to use a different source area.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

c


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

Biff said:


> c


I could not have said it better!


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## DGStinner (Nov 13, 2018)

When all else fails, Photoshop will typically do it better.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

> I could not have said it better!


Oops, actually I wouldn't think that. Sorry, I tried to write (just too many keys): Thank you very much!



> When all else fails, Photoshop will typically do it better.


Yes, but I guess it is more likely that my skills are limiting the editing quality.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

It's true that this is much easier to do in Photoshop. The disadvantage of using Photoshop for something like this is that is breaks your non-destructive raw-workflow and creates a tiff copy. It's a matter of deciding which is more important to you. Sometimes I would take the time to try to do it in Lightroom, and sometimes I know that Photoshop is really the only option.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

> The disadvantage of using Photoshop for something like this is that is breaks your non-destructive raw-workflow and creates a tiff copy.


What is the disadvantage of it?


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

Biff said:


> What is the disadvantage of it?


The disadvantage is first of all that you have an extra copy, but most of all that your Lightroom edits will be 'baked in' the TIFF file, so you will not be able to change them after you did that work in Photoshop.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

May be, if those edits in Photoshop are needed in any case, one could do them first in Photoshop and after go on with Lightroom.


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

Biff said:


> May be, if those edits in Photoshop are needed in any case, one could do them first in Photoshop and after go on with Lightroom.


You could, but that is still not the same. If you open a raw file in Photoshop from Lightroom, the image gets rendered and the copy is RGB. That means that it’s not the same. You can’t change the white balance anymore, for example,  because the white balance is ‘baked in’ now. You can add WB corrections, but that is not the same as *setting* the WB in raw conversion.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

Yes, I understand. So what would be the best way though if one has to edit in Photoshop? I assume, editing with Photoshop is very common, so many would have that issue.

And why generally at all is it important after the first finished edits to be able to do further edits?


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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 13, 2018)

Biff said:


> Yes, I understand. So what would be the best way though if one has to edit in Photoshop? I assume, editing with Photoshop is very common, so many would have that issue.
> 
> And why generally at all is it important after the first finished edits to be able to do further edits?


One reason could be that nobody is perfect. You may want to change something after a while, even though you were initially quite happy. Another reason could be that technology advances. What isn’t possible today, may be possible next year. But then it may mean you have to start all over again. It’s not a big deal, but it is worth keeping in mind when you decide how to tackle a problem.


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## Biff (Nov 10, 2018)

How could one remove the camera? Using the spot removal does not work very well. Instead of the camera there should be the background color.


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## Biff (Nov 13, 2018)

Alright, I understand, many thanks.


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