Photoshop help - removing a picture

[dh2]

Hi all.

A quick (hopefully) photoshop question.
I have a photo which is of family sitting on a sofa, but there is a picture on the wall in the background, partially cropped at the top of the image, which I would like to remove. The wall is a plain colour, but because of the light source it is gradiated in both the left-right and up-down directions. I can use photoshop to fill a selection box with a gradient, but only in one direction, not both. How can I do this?
Does that make sense? I only have Essentials rather than the full Photoshop, at present.

Thanks in advance of any help.

DH2

[GetCarter]

I would use the clone tool first. Often works.

[dh2]

GetCarter said:

I would use the clone tool first. Often works.

yeah-but,no-but... I tried that and it didn't come out very well, because of the gradient in the colour in both directions, it was difficult to find the right place to clone from, and it ended up looking obvious/messy.

DH2

[stuart b]

Difficult without seeing it. You could try a couple of layers - one for each gradient you need. Fiddle with layer opacity to get the right balance, just a guess.

The PS experts make such things look easy, but some of these fixes take some real skill.

Stuart

[mneame]

i'd have said the clone tool as well and lots of patiece and reselection of the area you are cloning.

or could you just crop the image so that this part of the shot is no longer there?

stick the image up and i'm sure someone will be kind enough to have a go

[dh2]

Hmmm gradients in layers is certainly worth a try.

Unfortunately I don't have anywhere to put the image... but I have shared it in an album on Photobox (where it has to be sent to print this evening) Pic here

DH2

[dh2]

That looks about right in tiny size.
A healing brush you say... does that exist in PS Essentials?

DH2

[speedychrissie]

dh2 said:

That looks about right in tiny size.
A healing brush you say... does that exist in PS Essentials?

DH2

i dont know. i have photoshop CS2.

if you want to send me a higher res version i will be more than happy to have a go at that for you and send it back (i am very bored today)

[dh2]

sure can - it's a big file though...

DH2

[speedychrissie]

dh2 said:

sure can - it's a big file though...

DH2

if it is less than 10mg i should be able to recieve it. if not you could reduce it in size (change the quality when saving it as a JPEG) and upload it to photobox again.

[dh2]

Thanks for the help all. I've just made a more concentrated effort with the clone tool, and it looks ok (on my screen at least).
Speedychrissie / moderator, would you mind removing the picture in your post now - just paranoia about having personal pics in public forums... Thanks again.

DH2

[speedychrissie]

dh2 said:

Thanks for the help all. I've just made a more concentrated effort with the clone tool, and it looks ok (on my screen at least).
Speedychrissie / moderator, would you mind removing the picture in your post now - just paranoia about having personal pics in public forums... Thanks again.

DH2

glad you got a result you like. i have removed my post.

[Bee_Jay]

You should try the 'patch tool' (an option on the healing brush button for this, it will most likely get better results than the clone you tried. I'll give it a go for you if you like.