How to clean up an Image
 

The following editing was done on Stephen Fox's Spitfire, it was done as follows.

Open image to be edited.

1. Right click on the background Layer and create a duplicate layer.
Click on this background layer to start editing.

2. In the History Palette create a snapshot. That's the button in the middle at the bottom. This creates snapshots of what you have done so far, you can then go back in history if you want to change things later.

Continue

Next step
 

3. Go to the clone tool, press Alt to set the area you want to clone you can vary the size by right clicking on the screen and using the slider or using the the keys [ = reduce, ]=increase these are useful keystrokes to remember it works on every tool that can to be resized.

Once you have picked the area, start to clone removing the unwanted items, don't worry about the slight colour variations that will be put right with the next tool.

4. Create a snapshot highlight the snapshot and continue working.

Continue

Next step
 

5. Now go to the patch tool Create a random shape, move this shape over an area that has been cloned. Keep doing this and it will even out the surface so it blends in.

when you are happy with the work done Save as a PSD. This keeps everything you have done so you can go back any time for more editing. If you save as Tiff or jpg you will only be saving the finished work with no options to go back, except to the original.

The last photo is the final image.

Nice job Christine, but why stop there when you could clone out the stand as well ;)

Here is the spitfire without the stand.

A well presented tutorial Christine.

Nice job. :cool:

Don

Perhaps a hint of colour in the sky?

It looks a bit un-centred, perhaps enlarging canvas and re-crop central?

Centred with a bit of colour.

Its looking good, how is the colour added without tinting fuselage of Spitfire. If its easy then the background could be darkened showing the model with greater background to subject contrast.

Resizing, Cropping, & changing background
 

Sorry about that. I should have explained.

To resize the image go to Image then canvas size, I gave it 2 centimetres in height and width, this gave a white border all the way round. Then I re-cropped the image to centralise it.

I then used the magic wand to pick the border. Rather than use a bucket fill which would leave a flat border, I used the clone tool to clone the sky into the new border. Deselect the area and then use the patch tool to tidy things up.

To change the sky colour I used the magic wand to get the sky, it was set for 5 pixels so I didn't take any of the plane.
I then used the Gradient tool with the foreground darker than the background. Place a line from the top to the bottom of the image this gives a good graduation of the two colours.
Finishe.

Select the sky with the magic wand with tolerance set to about 5. Then clean up the edges of the plane with the lasso tool.

Select the colour of blue of your choice as the foreground colour, with white as the background, then filter >render > clouds

Then make a rough selection towards the outside of the image, feather the selection (I chose 25 px but that depends on the sise of your image) then use levels to darken the edges of the image :D

Here is a B&W version.

I did try some cloud effects but I prefere this.

Thanks Gidders.
That's a good explanation on how to create your own sky out of two layers, its a method I will have to have a go at. I couldn't find a decent photo of a sky to use.