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When bad relationships happen to good photos
In the old days, when a relationship ended, you had to go to the trouble of setting a trash-can fire to obliterate those once-happy pictures of you and your ex. Now, in yet another case of saving labor digitally, when someone’s out of the picture you can simply, well, take them out of the picture.
The technique here is not so different (in principle) from the one Stalin’s henchmen/artists used to remove traces of offed “enemies of the people” from the photographic record (see Snapshots: “Stalin’s photo purge,” April 1998). You won’t need as much talent as those airbrushers, though eliminating people from your photographs may give you a pleasant feeling of dictatorial self-confidence.
Of course, you can use this technique for more noble purposes; it’s useful for assembling a family portrait or just bringing people closer together. The primary skill to practice here is creative cloning because, as we all know, when something disappears, it needs to be replaced with something else. It’s possible to take the easier way out and do a major crop first, saving you most of the work, but then you risk losing the context and original feeling of the picture.
By way of illustration I present you with my ex, Tyrone (not his real name, or existence). We seemed so happy then.…Who knew he was going to leave me to devote himself to stalking Angelina Jolie full-time? Here’s a picture from a rainy evening spent listening to bluegrass with our dear friends Franziska and Francisco, visiting from abroad. It was a lovely night—they’re rarely in town and I want to remember it. I just don’t want to have to remember Tyrone at the same time. I’ll show you two ways to do it: if you’re willing to stand alone, you can erase your partner and crop. If it’s too lonely that way, add a friend.
(Step 1) Gonna wash that man right outta my frame. First things first—make him disappear. Start by making a duplicate layer of the background. Then use existing elements from the picture to cover him up. I selected a part of the black, painted area using the Lasso, then hit Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste to automatically create a new layer. The first time you paste your copied element, it will appear exactly on top of your selection. Thereafter, it lands in the center. After each paste, grab the Move tool and position the element over the figure until he’s completely covered.
(Step 2) Blending. Now you’ve got your man covered, but the pieces are probably a little choppy looking. Merge the new layers together by first hiding the background and its copy, then going to Layer > Merge Visible. Use the Healing brush to blend the sections together. Turn all the layers back on.
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