Improve your photos in minutes by erasing annoying people or objects from the image.
The smartphone has become the star camera in just a few years. Nothing really surprising about that when you see the quality of the optics used and the efficiency of the image processing applied on recent devices.
But taking pictures on a daily basis will not make you a photographer. Of course, you capture an image, but its composition, framing, and elements that appear in the background may have escaped you. Who has never taken a sublime shot … before realizing the presence of a post, a trash can, or worse, a photobomber, in the background?
Rest assured, nothing is lost. It is quite possible, with the help of an application, to carry out a small touch-up allowing to erase the unsightly elements of an image. If it doesn’t work a miracle, it will at least allow you to save your image. To carry out our retouching, we opted for Adobe Photoshop Fix, a free application which however requires the connection to a free Adobe account.
Keep in mind, however, that not all photos will lend themselves to this practice and that the retouching can in some cases be poor. The reason is quite simple. To remove an item from an image, applications only replace the item by duplicating a nearby area. It will therefore be necessary that there is enough material around the subject to be removed, and that the background is relatively uniform if you want to obtain a suitable result.
In addition, as finger editing is not a precision model, do not hesitate to zoom in as much as possible to remove an element that is too close to another.
1. Download Adobe Photoshop Fix
Start by downloading the Adobe Photoshop Fix app on your iPhone or Android smartphone. This app is free, but requires you to sign in to an Adobe account to use it. You can create a free account directly from the application.
Download Adobe Photoshop Fix for Android (Free)
Download Adobe Photoshop Fix for iPhone (Free)
2. Create a new project
Open Photoshop Fix, sign in to your Adobe account and create a new project by pressing the + button. Choose the source from which you want to import your image, in our example, from our smartphone.
3. Choose the right tool
To remove an element from the image, you will need to use the appropriate tool. So select the Healing Brush tool from the toolbar, displayed at the bottom of the screen. Once the Healer is selected, keep the correction tool chosen by default, the Localized Healer.
4. Adjust the tool parameters
Before you start retouching your image, you will need to adjust the size and hardness of your tool. If it’s not already deployed onscreen, tap the paintbrush icon on the left to open the TouchUp Tool settings pane.
To change the size and hardness of the tool, hold your finger on the parameter you want to change, and drag it up or down to increase or decrease the value.
5. Start retouching
The Spot Healing Brush tool is designed to provide a very easy correction to use. Theoretically, to use it, just touch the item you want to delete to see it disappear. But the result is rarely perfect. It is therefore advisable to proceed in small areas, zooming as much as possible to improve the precision of your finger.
In the event that you perform an action with a bad result, you can always go back by pressing the dedicated arrow at the top right of the interface.
Handling in Photoshop Fix, a touch-sensitive interface, requires a few minutes of adaptation. If you touch the image with one finger, you will immediately apply a correction. To move the image on the screen and zoom, always use two fingers simultaneously.
Now touch the area you want to disappear. Photoshop Fix then immediately replaces the selected area with material duplicated from another area. If the result suits you, continue.
However, applying the patch may not completely remove the item you want to remove, or replace it with something else. If this happens to you, select the Patch tool from the toolbar. The shape of the area you just corrected is highlighted in red. Then slide your finger to replace the selected area with the area you touch.
Once all of your edits are complete, tap the check mark at the bottom right to save your work.
Then tap the Share button, then tap Save to Camera Roll to save the photo to your device.