Selecting telephone wires

MR
Posted By
Mike Russell
Feb 23, 2008
Views
732
Replies
9
Status
Closed
"Robert Feinman" wrote in message
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

Hold the shift key down while clicking the clone tool or other brush to stroke a straight line.

Mike Russell – www.curvemeister.com

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RF
Robert Feinman
Feb 23, 2008
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?


Robert D Feinman – Landscapes, Panoramas, Photo Tips
Web Site: http://robertdfeinman.com
J
jaSPAMc
Feb 23, 2008
Robert Feinman found these unused words:

I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

Clone tool or healing brush as you can maintain the tonality adjacent to their ‘path’ across the image.
AB
Alan Beynon
Feb 24, 2008
I agree that it would be far easier to clone the lines out. The only other alternative would be to use the pen tool. Great for selecting uniform shapes. Still tedious though.

"Robert Feinman" wrote in message
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

Robert D Feinman – Landscapes, Panoramas, Photo Tips
Web Site: http://robertdfeinman.com
J
Joel
Feb 24, 2008
Robert Feinman wrote:

I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

I don’t know any good trick, but just the very BASIC command would do. And pick your choice

– Clone Tool

– Heal Brush/Patch

– Duplicate

And how well you do those basic commands is up to you.
J
jaSPAMc
Feb 24, 2008
"Mike Russell" found these unused
words:

"Robert Feinman" wrote in message
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

Hold the shift key down while clicking the clone tool or other brush to stroke a straight line.

Unless they’ve changed PS that much, this will only do true horizontal and true vertical lines.

Ues as ‘soft’ (feathered) a brush as possible. The blend carries the tonality better.
S
samandjanet
Feb 27, 2008
Robert Feinman wrote:
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

As veryone else has suggested, the clone tool or healing brush will allow you to *paint* them out of the picture.

However, if you have another reason for wanting to select the power lines, try this.
Copy the image into a new layer and convert the whole thing to grayscale. Now go into images>adjustments>levels and constrict the white and black channels together to increase the contrast to the point where you’re left with a silhouette.
You can now use this silhouette layer, or selected parts of it as a layer mask to pick out the relevant parts.
J
jaSPAMc
Feb 27, 2008
"\(not quite so\) Fat Sam" found these
unused words:

Robert Feinman wrote:
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

As veryone else has suggested, the clone tool or healing brush will allow you to *paint* them out of the picture.

However, if you have another reason for wanting to select the power lines, try this.
Copy the image into a new layer and convert the whole thing to grayscale. Now go into images>adjustments>levels and constrict the white and black channels together to increase the contrast to the point where you’re left with a silhouette.
You can now use this silhouette layer, or selected parts of it as a layer mask to pick out the relevant parts.
You’ll probably also have to feather the selection as in the original wires will, perhaps in some parts, be on the ‘wrong side’ of the silhouette.

This could leave a nearly visible’ remnant, if the selection were ‘hard’.
R
Ragnar
Feb 27, 2008
Robert Feinman wrote:
I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

The old ‘trick’ you may be thinking of (if you don’t want to use Clone Stamp or Healing Brush) is to duplicate the layer then move the new layer a couple of pixels upwards or sideways. Set the blend mode of your new layer to ‘Lighten’ and the wires disappear as if by magic. The rest of the image might look a pit peculiar but you can erase the parts of the layer that you are not concerned with.

HTH
R.
T
Talker
Feb 28, 2008
On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 09:46:01 -0500, Robert Feinman
wrote:

I know I have seen some some tricks for selecting telephone and electric power lines in order to remove them from the photo, but I seem to have forgotten them.
Currently I use the magic wand tool which is slow and somewhat inaccurate especially when the wires are out of focus. After I have the wire selected I expand it by a pixel or two and then use the patch tool followed by some extra touch up, if needed. This is all slower than I’d like.

So, does anyone have some good tricks for selecting wires?

The best way is the way most here have mentioned….using the clone tool and the healing brush. If you want to use those tools, here is an explanation on how to do it.
http://picman0.googlepages.com/home (scroll down to the bottom and click on Page 2)
It’s funny but after I posted the above reply about
"superimposing" and included a link. I found the link had more pages to it so I read those pages and it actually had a cloning out process for telephone wires.<g>

Talker

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