Removing Distractions... Without AI

A quick demonstration of how I plan a shot and remove stubborn distractions.

Whilst roaming the statics at IWM Duxford’s Battle of Britain airshow I noticed a woman in an American ATA uniform sitting in a USAF marked Spitfire(from her reaction she had asked for a nosey and got to sit in the cockpit) The shot immediately came to me, I wanted to shoot down the tail as she climbed out. The one problem I had was a man in modern clothes showing her around the cockpit. This wasn’t the right time to stage a shot so I planned my edit. He would be too much to content-aware out and if I cropped him out I would lose my composition. I framed my shot and locked my focus point on the cockpit door, Then without moving my camera I waited, I took several shots any time he moved out of the way and then ofcorse when the woman climbed out of the spitfire(the shot I wanted). My plan is to cut him out of the photo.

I started by selecting the photos I wanted, I needed a shot without the man and one of the woman climbing out the spitfire.

I took them into Photoshop and used the “auto-align layers” tool to align the layers.

Now with the layers aligned, I could remove the distraction. I used a layer mask to erase the man from the image. As I didn’t move my camera the shot where he moved out of frame filled the blank space. I had to do a bit of blending with a soft brush but I got the shot I wanted. I then took it back to lightroom to edit.

This is the composition with the 2 layers combined before any edits. What I love about this method is nothing is artificial, no Content-aware or AI everything is as it was so nothing looks out of place.

The final result, and the photo I wanted to take.

Some tips if you want to try this. Pick your composition and be patient, It may take a while but take a few photos any time something changes to give yourself plenty of pics to work with.

A tripod helps but it isn’t needed. I frequently do this whilst hand-holding my camera but it’s a lot easier on a tripod. The auto-align tool is definitely your friend.

Lock your focus, decide your focal point and lock it in. You don’t want your focus point moving as it will mess up the layering and blending.