Photoshop CS5′s Content-Aware Fill Not What it’s Cracked Up to Be
By Lucas Carter on May 2nd, 2010 at 6:14PM
A couple months ago, Adobe blew our minds with a video sneak peek at their new feature in Photoshop CS5, Content-Aware Fill (or as I like to call it, God Mode). Content-Aware Fill gives the user the ability to seemingly remove anything out of a photo, and Photoshop would magically fill in the gap.
CS5 finally released and needless to say, Content-Aware Fill was the very first tool I wanted to try. I scanned quickly through my library of images and pulled out a photo that I took last year. I love the photo, but there’s a few things I was eager to take out.
In the original version above there is an annoying speaker on the right and a microphone cable going across the side of his shirt. This is incredibly annoying and it draws attention away from the photo. I selected the speaker first with the lasso tool, hit delete, selected OK on the Content-Aware Fill menu, and sat back while the progress bar raced across the screen. What I had wanted was a black area to the right, making it look like nothing was there. Well, you can see what happened instead:
I tried Content-Aware Fill in several other places that yielded similar, unusable results as you can see. I did, however, think that it was at least a good start on retouching where the cable went through his shirt. It seems like Photoshop relies on information from both sides of what you’re trying to remove, so obstructions on the edges seem to leave you out of luck.
Finally, below is an edit done in about 5 minutes on CS5, but using all the tools I’m already familiar with from CS4 such as the clone tool, patch tool, etc.
Content-Aware Fill will have its uses, but it’s not the wonder tool that Adobe made it out to be, but this could be a very powerful tool in the future after Adobe refines it a bit.
You contact Lucas Carter by sending him an email to lucas.m.carter@gmail.com.
It’d also be interesting to see how cleanly Content Aware Fill can attempt to take out that huge red watermark.
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I agree that watermark is a little insane and unnecessary. I think a little copyright at the bottom would be plenty enough.
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The fact is, an annoying watermark straight across the front is the most effective. The thing of it is, when content-aware fill first came out, it essentially, to me, seemed like a watermark removal tool. Watermarking is the only thing a professional photographer can do against image theft. This is what we do for a living, and when people rip off our images, it pulls food off our table. I used to think that watermarks like this were obnoxious, but after being in a position where I rely on my images to cover my cost of living, it’s really a necessity. Talk to any professional photographer and ask them if a small, bottom right corner watermark will protect their imagery. A watermark should never be able to simply be cropped out of the image.
Fact is, i tried it, and it really bothered me how content-aware fill did with the watermark, but thankfully due to 72dpi and the nature of text, there was still ghosting and it wasn’t a 1 click removal.
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I agree Lucas there is every need to protect your work especially if you make your living from it.
And if it was just a small copyright in the bottom corner the photo would be ripped off this site and cropped by most members.
Great photo by the way :)
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Content aware is not very good, I tested it and so far the area are soft and rather weak, there is a video on youtube, showing the patch match tools and it has these controls that limit the the path and fill, constraining horizontal lines and such. I wish the content aware has some more control over selection, especially thing like perspective.
Sometimes the content aware works great, but to be honest using it to do editing say a portrait will likely become a mess, I certainly wish I was wrong and that it worked miraculously, but there still no substitute for a good eye, especially in detail. The best way is to use it to do a quick fill, then use patch, clone…ect to tweak the images if it does not do the job well.
For low res image like filling in grass or tress, it works quite well. I tried Terry White saying filling in a wire crossing a column and it worked partially, I tried a brick wall and sections looked great, but other so so. Anyway anyone else seeing this on their testing?
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