Guru gods of Photoshop

[Maestro]

I have been trying to clone stamp the utility line out of this photo. The line that passes through the body of this kite. It just is not working. I designate which pixels I want to use, but nothing I do seems worthwhile and in fact, it seems quite messy. I have clone stamped other things without issue, but this is giving me all sorts of problems. My biggest problematic area is the area where the feathers are. Any suggestions on how best to attack this would be most appreciated. I have one of Tim Grey's book on digital photography workflow. I have read his section on clone stamping but I am not getting the results. Any advice or technique would, again, be much appreciated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/maestros/Nature/Raptors/Kite3a.jpg

[Zanotti]

http://zanotti.smugmug.com/photos/168530794-L.jpg (http://zanotti.smugmug.com/gallery/2240994#168530794)

[Art Scott]

Zanotti,
Please describe how you did that as I have several really good photos that need almost exactly the same thing done to them.
Thanks

[Maestro]

http://zanotti.smugmug.com/photos/168530794-L.jpg (http://zanotti.smugmug.com/gallery/2240994#168530794)

I'm friggin' amazed. Please explain how you did this. How did you get the tonal ranges to match so closely? I am stunned. I would like to know so I can modify my converted RAW image. Wow, just wow! :thumb

[nikos]

1. Dodge/burn to brighten up the areas shaded by the line and darken the outlines of the feathers.

2. Followed up with the healing brush to bring back the texture in those areas

3. Converted to lab, increased contrast, slightly bumped colors, then finished up with some sharpening of the L channel.

[Maestro]

Nikos,

So you didn't use the clone stamp? You just used the healing utility? Or did you use the clone stamp then the healing brush as a clean-up? Thanks for your help.

[nikos]

Nikos,

So you didn't use the clone stamp? You just used the healing utility? Or did you use the clone stamp then the healing brush as a clean-up? Thanks for your help.

Actually, I did use the clone stamp to get rid of the line in the sky. It does a nice quick job on areas that do not have a lot of texture and lets you clone very close to contrasty edges without any adverse blending effects. When it comes to the feathers, the clone stamp can easily leave tell-tale signs of repeating patterns and blurring from the edges of a soft brush.

To touch up the feathers, I used to dodge tool to lighten up the obvious darker areas of the line which will help pave the way for the healing brush. I then followed up with the burn tool to bring back the shadow outlines of the wings and certain key areas.

I then used the healing brush to bring in the texture back into the dodged areas and I most likely finished up with some additional dodging & burning to bring back depth to the image that may look flat.

HTH,
Nikos