How does software image removal work? (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

I find this technology pretty amazing.

Today I was at the boardwalk and my friend took the picture on the left with her iPhone 8 camera. She complained there were people in the way of the beach scenery.

So, I took that image and used Luminar AI to erase the two people in that photo.

I know this software technology has been around for quite some time now, but this is the first time I have experimented with the eraser tool.

What floors me is that somehow the software figured out what was behind those images of the people in the first photo

The boardwalk railing is an easier fix. Just a continuity thing. However, the software figured out that there should be surfboards behind the woman on the right and filled in a few more.

I actually tried a few Google searches on how this technology works but came up with nothing. Maybe I was using the wrong terms.

Just really amazed at how the software figures out how to repaint/repopulate information behind (and never meant to be seen) the images one is removing.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Look closer and you'll see it basically just copied and pasted the section of image consisting roughly 3 columns of surfboards a couple columns to that (erased) person's left... and it didn't do it perfectly -- it actually clobbered at least 1 preexisting surfboard to the person's right... but the details are small (and insignificant) enough for most people (not looking to scrutinize) to notice.

Probably just some basic pattern recognition algorithm to identify that's its best option... but didn't do a particularly good job making sure the result didn't leave artifacts like preexisting objects being clobbered...

Likely good enough for a phone app though...

_Man_

 

[David_B_K]

I like the way the software did something quickly that would take a long time to do manually. I may download the trial version.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Look closer and you'll see it basically just copied and pasted the section of image consisting roughly 3 columns of surfboards a couple columns to that (erased) person's left... and it didn't do it perfectly -- it actually clobbered at least 1 preexisting surfboard to the person's right... but the details are small (and insignificant) enough for most people (not looking to scrutinize) to notice.

Probably just some basic pattern recognition algorithm to identify that's its best option... but didn't do a particularly good job making sure the result didn't leave artifacts like preexisting objects being clobbered...

Likely good enough for a phone app though...

_Man_

Man,

That is something I didn't notice...

...but most people will never scrutinize a photo the way you just did (and I am glad you did it for our purposes).

So, at least I better understand what it is doing (merely copying an existing image), and good enough to the point that most anyone looking at will never notice corrections have been made.

In all, it's pretty amazing what the software is able to accomplish and as DAVID just mentioned above, within a few short seconds.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The photo below took me quite awhile to remove several people standing on the rocks. I used the healing brush in DxO PhotoLab, and still couldn't get the water to look perfect. A more automated tool may have been useful.

 

[David_B_K]

I had to do an extensive repair on an old black and white photo a few years ago, using the clone brush to "erase" cracks in the photo. It worked, but took a long time. I haven't downloaded this software yet, but when I do I'll try it on that old photo to see how fast it can work.

 

[Mysto]

Now if it would just remove the bug on my TV show recordings...

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The photo below took me quite awhile to remove several people standing on the rocks. I used the healing brush in DxO PhotoLab, and still couldn't get the water to look perfect. A more automated tool may have been useful.

Don't know what better software there might be for this, but I suspect that app would not have satisfied for this.

It may be good enough for most phone snapshots that won't be blown up, if ever even viewed as more than mere snapshot on social media, but probably not for what you likely want w/ that...

_Man_

 

[Johnny Angell]

I went to Luminar’s web site and it looks like a very powerful program. I did not see a demo of image removal. I also noticed there’s add-ons for purchase. Maybe it was in one of those?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Actually, taking another look and noticed it also did a rather poor job of the distant beach and water, especially at the horizon and the beach line where both are not lining up -- those would probably be the most noticeable if Ron hadn't mentioned the surfboards (taking our focus to that instead). And yes, the nearby railing also isn't lined up correctly.

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The moral of the story should probably be don't rely (much) on such software fixes if you want best results. Generally best to actually exercise good photographic skills (and decisions) and get the best out of the camera instead (w/ some realistic/viable PP in mind) -- and sometimes, there's simply not much to salvage while other times it may simply be worth the extra effort in PP...

_Man_

 

[Ronald Epstein]

I went to Luminar’s web site and it looks like a very powerful program. I did not see a demo of image removal. I also noticed there’s add-ons for purchase. Maybe it was in one of those?

It's in the base version as far as I know.