Thank god for the clone tool

[stubbsy]

Sometimes I'm crap when it comes to composition (well often - OK!) and sometimes the subject just doesn't co-operate. I'm still processing images from my November Antarctic trip and had two such images.

Thankfully someone invented the clone tool - otherwise I'd trash these two. It's easy to forget the utility of that little tool in your arsenal.

Her's the first of the two images after being "fixed"




And here is what I started with - the experts out there will tell me I should have noticed I'd chopped off the end of the beak and recomposed BEFORE I took the image below. And they are right, but for some reason (stupidity probably) I didn't. Adding the fake "beak" and a bit more background with the clone tool took around 10 minutes - not perfect, but I'm happy with it.




This finished image presented a different challenge




As you can see below, those pesky penguins don't prune the vegetation around their nest for us photographers. Again - clone tool to the rescue for a cleaner, less distracting image. 3 minutes well spent IMHO.

[colin_12]

Definately well spent effort here Peter. I like the penguin shot.

[radar]

Well worth the effort, both are now great shots.

cheers,


André

[surenj]

Damn those penguins who don't keep their yards clean. They must be hell to have as neighbours.

Nice work on these Peter. They have definitely been transformed!

[aim54x]

That clone tool worked very well for you...did you try "content aware fill" on either of these?

[Murray Foote]

With the first one, assuming you have CS5, I wonder if you extended the canvas by that amount and then used content aware fill, whether you might have got there is one hit. Content Aware Phil is a bit hit and miss but sometimes just works.