Touch-Up Tuesday - Griffith Park Observatory (Erasing People from a Pic)

When I shot my engagement session at Griffith Park Observatory, I knew tourists and crowds would be a problem, but we managed to find empty spots here and there to shoot.  But I really wanted a wide angle shot of them in front of the Observatory with the whole building behind them.  I knew it would be impossible to get this done without any people but I waited and tried to get as few people as possible.  This is how it came out. This shot is SOOC.



I liked the shot okay but the people in the back were sooo distracting to me. So I cropped it a bit to cut off the people on the far left, and then I zoomed way in and started erasing people one at a time with my clone stamp tool. Some people were standing in front of the dome which had a series of lines on it, so to successfully erase the person I had to copy the lines to keep the shape of the dome accurate. I had no idea if I could do this without ending up with a blurry mess, but I took my time.

Here's some screen shots of my progress.



The people walking in front of the building were the most difficult but they blocked several different backgrounds.  I used the walkway to erase their feet, the plants to erase their middles, and the wall to erase their tops!This was final picture. I have to say, I am quite pleased with how well I was able to "erase" people! Just don't zoom in on it and examine it too closely!