OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Amen to that. Removing pixels is the easy part. It's replacing them that takes skill.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Also Picasa (free) with the retouch tool. That's my go to for quick fixes.

jcboy3

If it's small, you can use the clone tool in Lightroom. If it's big, you will probably want a more flexible photo editor like Photoshop.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

And if it is big, good luck. I have tried, and its guessing game to fill in the missing area can render that spot realy, really ugly.

OddJobber Loc: Portland, OR

Best done in small overlapping sections. :)

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Do it all the time. In Photoshop, you can fairly easily clone over the offending object. This will replace it with whatever else you choose--mostly just a continuation of whatever is behind the object. That's the simplest way--there are some fancier options as well.

I just got back from a trip to Europe. Many of the historic sights had various signs (No parking, Pay Entrance Fee, Do not feed the birds, etc.) and wires in front or back of the subjects. It was tedious but easy to get rid of most of those.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

It all depends upon the size and the nature of the background. Some backgrounds are easy to remove offending items. Other backgrounds are horrible. And if you are using one of the "smart" removal methods, it can produce so really ugly fill if it is a difficult background.

canon Lee

ReMask3 is great for getting rid of the "wispy stuff" like hair!

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

There may some "one click" programs (see above) for a simple point and shoot approach, I have to admit I have never tried them. However, I do a lot of post processing on prints I sell at a gallery and removing unwanted spots, objects etc., is just one of many things I use to enhance my photos: Of necessity is the "rubber stamp" tool in Photoshop. Once mastered you may use it if you want to just reform a cloud, or add a cloud. You can use it not only to remove but add as well. You can paint in forms, reshape them, as well as remove them. It is more accurately called a cloning tool. I tried to "paint" over unwanted areas with color but it almost always looked faked because the texture of the surrounding area did not match. The cloning tool actually allows you to "graft" an area of the image to another area. If you have a paper cup on the grass, the tool takes another area of grass that you select and grafts it over the paper cup. the tool uses a circular area and the edge can be softened to create a seamless "patch". It does not have to be just a circle, you keep the left click down and drag the cursor and it creates a grafted "brushstroke". The size of the area grafted is variable down to one pixel, and the opacity can also be adjusted to zero transparency. The latest version in the 'cloud' photoshop even shows a preview of how the graft is lining up before it "pastes" it, allowing the clean edge of a building or tree branch to be maintained without trial and error. This gives me total creative control over the operation instead of letting the computer decide and just do a "one click" removal, although I wish I had that capability on more than one occasion.

Jim Bianco

Thanks,Jim

tradergeorge Loc: Newport, Kentucky

There are countless pieces of software that do this function. Just perform a quick Google search and you will be flooded with results. In fact, if you make your search specific enough, you can find a piece of software that specializes in only this function.

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

In photoshop there is also content aware fill.
Select the offending area and click >>edit >> fill >> select content aware from the dropdown.

JimH123 Loc: Morgan Hill, CA

Yes, but depending upon the complexity ot the background, results can range from acceptable to really ugly. Anytime you let the computer decide what to fill it with, better hold your breath and see what it delivers. My experience shows that it can produce real ugly results.

pking5820

I wrote and asked my Perfect Photo Suite 9 folks if they were planning to add this - it has been in PPS9.5 since version 8. Glad you asked the question, learned something myself, again.
The customer services folks took OVERNITE to answer my question (they've done this in the past so it seems to be their "norm").
Here is the video for the eraser : https://www.on1.com/training/perfect-layers-using-the-retouching-tools/

Hope this helps.

Pete

Jim Bianco

Thanks, Jim