How can we remove the fence from these three pictures?

[Tazicket]

Here are three pictures DH took when we were at the zoo a couple of weeks ago. He's kind of bummed, b/c the jaguar was RIGHT AT the fence, and (since we don't have a super zoom lense yet) we weren't able to blur the fence enough when we took the pictures.

Is there photo software that can remove the fence?

 

[Golf4food]

Nobody? Anybody? Not even a "Oooohhh... look at the pretty kitty..." ? Nothing? No? Ok.

Anyone from Peoria? In the back there?

Is this thing on?

And what's the deal with steel wool? Is it steel, or is it wool? Are there a bunch of steel sheep hopping around Scotland?

 

[fitzperry]

It is a pretty kitty!

The only way I know to "erase" something from an image is to clone it out (well, you could literally erase it and leave blank space, but that's clearly not what you're after!) I can't imagine anyone would have the patience to clone all that out, and to do it without it looking edited would be darn near impossible, IMO, but maybe someone will prove me wrong.

At least the fence is a little blurrier in the last one. Cool pic too!

 

[SplshMtn99]

LOL, yes your mic is on. (I've wanted to ask that question myself at times. )

I have no help to offer. But yes, he's a very pretty kitty. Um...but be GLAD the fence was there. He looks hungry.

 

[Philagoofy]

Those photos are very good, I especially like the last one. I often had this problem with fences too but have never tried the software to clone. I hope you find a good program & can make that fence disappear.

If you do, please re-post, I'd love to see them.

 

[Luv'sTink]

they are great photos. No help here sorry

 

[wdw_adict]

Cloning that amount of the picture out is going to be next to impossible and would take such a long time to do. The results would slmost certainly look edited you could try using a soft filter on the last one to see if that reduces the effect of the fence.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I agree with the others that have posted, cloning is your best option and it's a lousy one.

When shooting through a fence, it's generally hopeless if your subject is right up against the fence. If they are away from the fence, get as close as possible, open your aperture as wide as possible, and focus on your subject. If you've got a wide enough aperture and are close enough yourself, you should be to lose the fence. It's either that or shoot over or through the holes.

 

[BluOrchid2]

Nice kitty! Those big cats always seem so lazy....at the zoo, they are always just laying there sleeping! I'd love to go to Africa and see some of them sprinting at their top speed!

 

[Geoff_M]

As noted, the clone tool is your only option... and we're talking a LOT of work to boot.

One other bit of "shooting through a fence" advice. If you're at something like your kid's baseball game, you can also take a long a can of "Fence-away" (known to the rest of the world as fast drying flat black spray paint). When shooting against a fence the paint helps minimize the image distortion from light reflecting off of the fence links. Also, unless the fence is painted a different color, the black is all but un-noticeable on the fencing to passers-by.

 

[manning]

It may be easier than you think. If you have PhotoShop Elements, use the "spot healing tool."

 

[manning]

If you just remove the fence on the tiger it will look like the tiger is in front of the fence instead of behind it. This would be a lot easier than trying to remove all of the fence from the picture.

 

[manning]

How's this?

 

[jann1033]

very cool manning! great idea since you could probably crop most of the rest . but how did you get the spots to look good where you cropped them out?

 

[Golf4food]

Wow, Manning. Thanks. We don't have that particular program, but if an older version of Paint Shop Pro (I think it is PSP 5) has a similar feature we could monkey around with it. How exactly did you get the fence to go away so cleanly?

 

[manning]

I have Adobe PhotoShop Elements and used the "spot healing brush". You pass the brush over what you want to brush out and the program samples the area around it.

Just think of a pimple on a face. You place the brush over the pimple and the area around it is sampled and applied over the pimple.

 

[jann1033]

would you use a brush close to diameter equal to the area you are removing so you could do it in one pass?

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

Guess I should have taken the time to read the replies before doing this.

 

[manning]

More the merrier.