Most efficient way to erase details like wrinkles, etc in Photoshop..?

[ChrisOquist]

Hi,

I took a series of photographs of a model a week or so ago on a bed, and the sheets were a bit wrinkled. I'm starting to work on them now, but am wondering what the best way to remove some of the distracting little folds and lines on the fabric are. Since it isn't like removing blemishes off someone's face (there are wide spaces over which I could just erase all the details here) I figure there must be a faster way.

Right now I'm using Healing Brush Tool to get rid of them. In the photo below, I've done it on the top left corner already, as well as a bit further down the left edge. You can see just past her foot where the wrinkle along the top starts again. It looks pretty good where I've done it, but there must be a faster way to smooth out these sheets?

I ask because there are a whole series of photos like this..

 

[Ls3D]

O boy, in camera is so critical sometimes... meaning this is not a trivial set of edits.

A bold move might be to hand cut as much of the subject into a layer so that you can feather in replacement imagery.

A better suggestion is to do some laundry and re-shoot.

Looks like an interesting study, I hope you will post your favorite.

-Shea

 

[ChrisOquist]

Hmm.. re-shooting isn't an option. I guess I'll see what I can do with it right here.. If I can get rid of the most distracting wrinkles I'll be happy.

I'd be happy to post some of the shots when I'm done. They aren't actually all like this -most are of her face or full body, but this one just really showed the problem clearly.

Thanks!

 

[Ls3D]

Already burried her ehh? OK, that was BAD.. Chiller made me do it!

Layering while tedious will enable you to clone larger areas and take bigger brush strokes at the problem - like the artist painting with a straight arm. Then feather back to the original to blend where required. Guess we know what your Friday night is all about. :lmao: Please share any breakthroughs or midnight hallucinations.

-Shea

 

[ChrisOquist]

Hi Shea,

I eventually decided against spending hours and hours to fix it, thought they didn't look that bad. I posted the results from that shoot in the General Gallery:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=147829

Thanks again for your input.

 

[goliath]

Chris, a fast way is to make a rough selection on the areas you want to remove wrinkle, create a new layer via copy (ctrl+j on windows) and apply a gaussian blur on the new layer (you can adjust the edges of the areas you want to keep sharp with a layer mask)

Here is a 15 sec sample (my selection was a bit far from the legs though but you get the idea)

And if you find it too "soft" you can adjust gaussian blur setting and/or opacity of the layer to your taste

 

[Peano]

I know this problem has been solved, but just for future reference, this might help some. You can take out most of the wrinkles with surface blur. Unlike Gaussian blur, surface blur doesn't affect edges, so it requires less masking.

Not sure if you wanted the cyan cast, but I took it out. Here's a before and after using surface blur:

If you want to do further work by hand, the smudge tool is a quick way to smooth wrinkles that surface blur didn't remove: