The coast is finally clear, there’s a gap in the flow of people and you can get that shot you want. Then just as you compose someone appears, slowly wandering from side to side, pausing to read something before moving on. Then before you know it the next crowd of tourists appear, the time to take that shot is when there’s just that one person in the scene.
It may just be one person, but in order for your perfectly symmetrical shot to work, you need them gone. In a public place shouting at them to clear off isn’t an option, and at least with one person, it’s going to be far easier to remove one than with a crowd.
But how do you go about it? There’s a quick and easy digital way to remove unwanted people from your images. It involves taking two shots, then aligning them in Photoshop so that you can overlay the clear area of one image over the other.
While having the presence of mind to take two shots at the time would be ideal, it’s all too easy to forget. If that’s the case then it’s a case of using Photoshop army of retouching tools. Let’s take a look at both techniques.
Here are the two images prior to removing the person.
How to remove people in photographs using two photographs
- Open Bridge select the two images you want
- From the main menu select Tools > Photoshop > Photomerge
- Select Auto and make sure you untick “Blend Images together
- Click OK, in the layers pallet add a mask
- Select the black brush and paint over the person you want to remove
