How many times have you said, “That would be an excellent picture if it wasn’t for that random person walking right through my shot.” Finding unplanned people or objects in your pictures is about as irritating as nails on a chalkboard. This seems particularly common at destinations such as Howick Falls where people can easily spoil the beauty of such a breath-taking backdrop. No longer do you have to face the disappointment of a ruined photograph. There is now photo editing software for you to delete unwanted objects or people right out of the image.
The two main computer programs out there today to remove unwanted bystanders from photos are the GNU Image Manipulation Program which is free and SnapMania Tourist Remover which comes with a price. Both computer programs operate on the same idea. All that’s necessary to capture an unspoiled shot of a congested location are three to five pictures of the exact same line of vision. Just make sure that every individual point of the image is flawless in at least one picture. Take as many pictures as is necessary to make certain this is the case. By doing so, you are giving the editing tool everything it needs to fuse bits of each image together to produce one flawless photograph.
Both computer programs follow similar operation methods. Three images taken at the same framed location are the minimum needed for either of the two software programs to function. Any movement whatsoever during a shot will decrease the quality of the finished product image, so a tripod is most helpful to capture the necessary images. Before leaving the photography spot, check your photos to make sure that if a person was walking in one spot in an image, that spot is clear in at least one of the other photos. Now all you need to do is load your pictures into SnapMania. The software automatically locates unwanted people or items and replaces them with the exposed version of that exact spot from one of the other photos. The finished product image is quite impressive, but make sure to thoroughly check the image for something out of the ordinary which may have occurred.
From time to time, SnapMania does not successfully eliminate every speck of the undesired people or items. This means that if you’re not careful, you could end up with an elbow or part of leg aimlessly appearing in the image. One thing you can try when this happens is to put your pictures into SnapMania at a higher quality. If, however, this isn’t successful, more images of the exact location need to be taken and added to your photo mix to get the flawless image you need.
With the GNU Image Manipulation Program, your work is a bit more in depth because blemishes are not located and deleted instinctively by the software. All you need to do is lay the pictures on top of each other in the program to see anything that needs to be taken out, so that you can remove it yourself. Although it’s a little more work to use this free branch-off program from Photoshop, you can end up with the same results as SnapMania and share your wealth of new editing knowledge with other photographers you meet along the way.
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