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Suggestions for cloning out these power lines?

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PGH423

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I'm using Lightroom and really struggling to make the sky blend and tree branches line up decently. I tried PicMonkey too. Here are pictures with the power lines in the picture and with my cloning progress midway. I'm not sure if the cloning is even making it better or worse. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

b5009bfdb54e4e75b39a17705cb57e42.jpg

ac53b8c5066b400296378e6a0e3f5e54.jpg
 
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It's a good looking photo as it is. It tells a story and looks interesting.

Although very good it's not going to win any awards (check out the competitions here, there's many good photos) or fetch money as a stock photo.

It seems like you want to both remove the upper bundle of power lines, and the one just above the house.

I'm not aware of any package smart enough to do that - although with the new AI based tools, maybe someone can suggest one to try.

But if you can't find an AI-based tool that does this with a few clicks - you would have to do it manually - and is it worth it? It could look slightly cleaner without the power lines, but I think it looks good already.

Edit: Ah, seems you have some good advice about Photoshop
 
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PGH423 said:
I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Click to expand...
Always carry high voltage insulated clippers in your camera bag for removing pesky power lines from your scene. I'd also suggest carrying a chainsaw to remove trees blocking your view.

Just joking...

But yes, the edits do look worse than the power lines, and doing a good job would take more time than perhaps it is worth, because it would require extensive manual retouching.

Maybe a different camera position or focal length would minimize the visual effect of the power lines. Likewise, different times of day or times of year would help.
 
Step one: draw a selection mask over the powerline with the brush tool. The power line is mostly straight, so that should take you less than two minutes to do by hand.

Step two: hit 'content aware fill'
 
Bob said:
Step one: draw a selection mask over the powerline with the brush tool. The power line is mostly straight, so that should take you less than two minutes to do by hand.

Step two: hit 'content aware fill'
Click to expand...
True, Bob, that would solve most of the problems, but the algorithm often removes twigs as well. In most cases, you'd probably end up with a better job. If the OP doesn't have or can't afford Photoshop, Gimp is a pretty good free alternative (although it lacks many of ther bells and whistles). I wouldn't use Lightroom for this kind of task.
 
PGH423 said:
I'm using Lightroom
Click to expand...
What version of LR? If it's the subscription model you also have the full Photoshop which (as Bob has already said) is far better for this sort of thing.

PS has several tools and you'll need to use different ones in different areas. It takes a bit of learning - so you'll need to experiment - and for the bits in the branches you'll need a tiny brush so it can take a long time.
PGH423 said:
and really struggling to make the sky blend and tree branches line up decently. I tried PicMonkey too. Here are pictures with the power lines in the picture and with my cloning progress midway. I'm not sure if the cloning is even making it better or worse. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

b5009bfdb54e4e75b39a17705cb57e42.jpg

ac53b8c5066b400296378e6a0e3f5e54.jpg
Click to expand...


--
---
Gerry
________________________________________________________________________
I'm happy for anyone to edit any of my photos and display the results
_________________________________________________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006
www.pbase.com

Galleries by Gerry Winterbourne

www.pbase.com
[email protected]
 
PGH423 said:
I'm using Lightroom and really struggling to make the sky blend and tree branches line up decently. I tried PicMonkey too. Here are pictures with the power lines in the picture and with my cloning progress midway. I'm not sure if the cloning is even making it better or worse. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

b5009bfdb54e4e75b39a17705cb57e42.jpg

ac53b8c5066b400296378e6a0e3f5e54.jpg
Click to expand...


If you have Photoshop, dump it into that and use it instead of trying to deal with the clone/heal tool in Lightroom (the only bit about LR I don't like). If you use the healing brush, the cloud section will take just a few seconds and when you get closer to the edges of the trees, you can switch to the clone brush and use that so the blended edges don't get muddy (which happens sometimes with the heal brush). Inside of the trees, you might find the heal brush works well grabbing sections just a bit above or below, but if it muddies it up, then I'd switch to the clone brush again and work your way through (with branches as bunched up as they are, it probably won't have to be perfect to blend in well).

--
Accelerating Entropy
 
Why CLONE out when simple IN-PAINTING will do? $9.95 Snap-Heal also (built-in the Luminar)

Paint over the power line . . . I forgot the lower power line . . . did it separately
Paint over the power line . . . I forgot the lower power line . . . did it separately

Result (below) upon clicking the Erase. Entire process took about 8 seconds.

75ce17fc6c8547798d4538299c9ce0ee.jpg
 
Andersonm said:
It's a good looking photo as it is. It tells a story and looks interesting.

Although very good it's not going to win any awards (check out the competitions here, there's many good photos) or fetch money as a stock photo.

It seems like you want to both remove the upper bundle of power lines, and the one just above the house.

I'm not aware of any package smart enough to do that - although with the new AI based tools, maybe someone can suggest one to try.

But if you can't find an AI-based tool that does this with a few clicks - you would have to do it manually - and is it worth it? It could look slightly cleaner without the power lines, but I think it looks good already.

Edit: Ah, seems you have some good advice about Photoshop
Click to expand...
What's the story this photo tells? I don't see one.
 
When I see this image, I think of who built this bridge, why, how it's made, how it's used and maintained.

It's in the wilderness or countryside somewhere. It doesn't look like it was made by the government according to modern structural engineering plans, or it would be more regular, and with steel and concrete. not wood and stacked rocks.

So it looks old, but still very solidly made with great care, probably to carry something heavy, and very well maintained. It speaks of a local community or resourceful farmstead who made this bridge through great effort, to carry wagons of produce, lumber or goods. If you cross this bridge, you'll find a city at one end, and a remote community at the other, and the bridge links the two.

That's at least what I get from it :)
 
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Parry Johnson said:
Bob said:
Step one: draw a selection mask over the powerline with the brush tool. The power line is mostly straight, so that should take you less than two minutes to do by hand.

Step two: hit 'content aware fill'
Click to expand...
True, Bob, that would solve most of the problems, but the algorithm often removes twigs as well. In most cases, you'd probably end up with a better job. If the OP doesn't have or can't afford Photoshop, Gimp is a pretty good free alternative (although it lacks many of ther bells and whistles). I wouldn't use Lightroom for this kind of task.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's true. This is one of the best examples I found on YouTube:


41c8d173c70f4aa9a398f390ca6aaecb.jpg.png
 
I am not a LR user. I use Photoshop Elements.

The clone tool variants can make details look a little muddy as someone pointed out earlier.

For something like this I get very much better results using the Frequency Separation technique.

Although it is mainly used for touching up portraits it can be used equally successfully in landscapes or any other type of image.

Fwiw, I did a quick and simple frequency separation to remove the power lines and still maintain good details in the trees.

It would still need a bit of fine tuning and tidying up but hopefully you can get the jist of the technique.

9bb51598602d401f8911e07e07528cdb.jpg

If you are unfamiliar with Frequency Separation this video might help a lot.
 
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EmmaNems said:
Andersonm said:
It's a good looking photo as it is. It tells a story and looks interesting.

Although very good it's not going to win any awards (check out the competitions here, there's many good photos) or fetch money as a stock photo.

It seems like you want to both remove the upper bundle of power lines, and the one just above the house.

I'm not aware of any package smart enough to do that - although with the new AI based tools, maybe someone can suggest one to try.

But if you can't find an AI-based tool that does this with a few clicks - you would have to do it manually - and is it worth it? It could look slightly cleaner without the power lines, but I think it looks good already.

Edit: Ah, seems you have some good advice about Photoshop
Click to expand...
What's the story this photo tells? I don't see one.
Click to expand...
It tells a story about trying to remove power lines.
 
EmmaNems said:
Andersonm said:
It's a good looking photo as it is. It tells a story and looks interesting.

Although very good it's not going to win any awards (check out the competitions here, there's many good photos) or fetch money as a stock photo.

It seems like you want to both remove the upper bundle of power lines, and the one just above the house.

I'm not aware of any package smart enough to do that - although with the new AI based tools, maybe someone can suggest one to try.

But if you can't find an AI-based tool that does this with a few clicks - you would have to do it manually - and is it worth it? It could look slightly cleaner without the power lines, but I think it looks good already.

Edit: Ah, seems you have some good advice about Photoshop
Click to expand...
What's the story this photo tells? I don't see one.
Click to expand...
I see the juxtaposition of 19th and 20th century technologies and society’s insensitivity to nature and the environment. Ironically, the power lines can be part of the story.
 
I used to use Paint when I first got my digital camera. I got pretty good just cutting and pasting. I removed an entire road on a hill side once. Took about 100 cut and pastes. About 2 hrs. I have the pic on the wall. It's small and you have to look very closely to see anything was done. There are much better tools today. Actually, there were probably better tools back then.
 
Last edited:
Parry Johnson said:
Bob said:
Step one: draw a selection mask over the powerline with the brush tool. The power line is mostly straight, so that should take you less than two minutes to do by hand.

Step two: hit 'content aware fill'
Click to expand...
True, Bob, that would solve most of the problems, but the algorithm often removes twigs as well. In most cases, you'd probably end up with a better job. If the OP doesn't have or can't afford Photoshop, Gimp is a pretty good free alternative (although it lacks many of ther bells and whistles). I wouldn't use Lightroom for this kind of task.
Click to expand...
If the OP has a modern verion of Lightroom, they'll have Photoshop too..
 
davidedric said:
Parry Johnson said:
Bob said:
Step one: draw a selection mask over the powerline with the brush tool. The power line is mostly straight, so that should take you less than two minutes to do by hand.

Step two: hit 'content aware fill'
Click to expand...
True, Bob, that would solve most of the problems, but the algorithm often removes twigs as well. In most cases, you'd probably end up with a better job. If the OP doesn't have or can't afford Photoshop, Gimp is a pretty good free alternative (although it lacks many of ther bells and whistles). I wouldn't use Lightroom for this kind of task.
Click to expand...
If the OP has a modern verion of Lightroom, they'll have Photoshop too..
Click to expand...
True. The point was that Lightroom is for general edits, Photoshop is for anything that requires extensive edits. I'll use Lightroom first to get the image to look pretty much how I like it, then Photoshop or other software to tweak it.
 
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