Inpaint: Most Convenient Way to Remove Other Tourists from Travel Photos

What is Inpaint? It is a photo restoration program that enables users to quickly remove unwanted objects and people that spoil an otherwise good picture. When you visit a popular tourist attraction (famous museum, ancient ruins, beautiful seashore, etc.), it is virtually impossible to take a nice picture without strangers getting into the shot. Of course, the can be removed with the help of Photoshop or other complex image editing software… but do you really want to spend hours muddling about with the Clone tool, if there is a solution that will do the same much faster?

Inpaint’s first removal method is based on the automatic replacement of an object with surrounding textures. You just load the image and use the red marker to paint over the object you would like to remove. The rest will be done automatically. By the way, if there are different textures with straight distinct borders between them, you can increase Inpaint’s accuracy by marking such borders with guide lines. It is also possible to restrict the donor area to a certain part of a picture.

 Watch the first method in action:

However, the first method is not absolutely accurate – for example, it would not work for a picture with lots of fine details. Inpaint’s recently introduced Multi View feature is much more effective: it enables the user to make a flawless photo out of several pictures of the same scene. Let other tourists swarm around and obstruct the view – you should stand still and take as many shots as you need (a tripod is not necessary). The only thing that matters is that every part of the scene must be visible in at least one photo.

What’s next? Open Inpaint, load the main photo and other pictures that will serve as donor areas. Slight differences in the angles are all right, since Multi View automatically aligns the photos. As soon as the donor area is chosen, you can move the cursor over the main picture and see what part of the donor shot lies “below”. Actually, it looks like magic: pesky tourists disappear from the photos in a few clicks of a button! The parts taken from the donor pictures seamlessly replace the tourists, making the resulted photo much better.

 Watch the second method in action:

To sum up, Inpaint is a very handy tool for retouching travel pictures. It enables you to quickly and smoothly remove unwanted objects and other tourists. Just imagine how surprised your friends will be: “How on earth did you manage to take a picture of empty Ha Long Bay (Angkor Wat, Red Square, any other popular place)?!” Besides, Inpaint will make your trips much more enjoyable; you will not have to watch out for every little chance to take a picture without other tourists. Just relax and take some additional shots: Inpaint will do the rest.

More information about Inpaint is available here: http://www.theinpaint.com/