Selection, cloning and object removal question

[Gavin Slabbert]

This is one of my favorite encounters of the year and unfortunately the grass / hay is in view at a few key spots, particularly on the tail and hind leg of the Female leopard on top.
Due to the rosette pattern of the leopard I have not been able to find a successful technique to clone. It seems that no matter what I attempt traces of the removal remain.

Any ideas, suggestions and or techniques would be most welcomed.

[Diane Miller]

Your best bet is probably to zoom in well past 100% and use a tiny brush and a lot of patience.

[Don Lacy]

Honestly Gavin I would present the image as is the grass on the tail and hind leg do not subtract from the image at all. The viewers eye is drawn to the top leopards face and the interplay between the leopards is the subject of the image and hold the viewers attention.

[Gavin Slabbert]

Thanks Lacy, I figured that a lot of patience, with a small brush is the only way, howwver I figured that I would ask anyway. And Don, that ia exactly what I intend to do, use it as is after a little post work.

[Martin Dunn]

Gavin, as Don said, the small grass intrusion on the tail is not a deal breaker. Attention is focussed elsewhere in the image.
However, this could be a great shot to experiement with to improve your technique. I have images which need far more cleaning up than this one. Initially I left them alone as I was not confident to tackle them but each time I learn or get better at a technique I go back to them and play.
As Dianne said, go to a high magnification and work on small bits at a time, then zoom back out and see how it looks.
Another good tip is to get someone else to look at the image after you worked on it. Your own eye will always be drawn to the area you worked on because you know it is there. An independent viewer will give you more accurate feedback on how successful you have been.

PS, neat image, I can see why you like it

[Gavin Slabbert]

Thanks Martin, I like to Think, and think is the key here, that I am quite good at cloning and removing, and I can do this using a tiny brush, lots of patience and a ton of time. The issue is that I run 4 to 6 safaris a year into South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania and Kenya each year and I shoot maybe 5000 images at each location, plus lets not forget about my own personal work that I shoot, so this leaves me with very little time to work on an image. Typically if I have to spend more than 10 minutes on an image it get thrown away so I was hoping that with the advances in content aware, cloning and such that there was a technique that I was not aware of.

[John Chardine]

Beautiful image Gavin, that as mentioned does not need anything more! However, for some suggestions- use a small brush zoomed in for sure, but then there are a variety of tools you could use. If you've had trouble with straight cloning I would try the Healing brush which does a much more seamless job. Good luck and take frequent breaks to prevent eye strain!

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Gavin,
I tried with content aware tool. quick and dirty, best results of you start from RAW

[Gavin Slabbert]

Thanks Arash, I will play with it, had really not considered the content aware tool :) simply worked with the image blown up with a fine brush, I guess that I need to attempt the obvious :)

[arash_hazeghi]

the other method is to select the feature you want to remove at magnified view using lasso tool, then feather mask at 1 pixel and hit CTRL+F5.

[Gavin Slabbert]

Thanks Arash, I will give the a shot. Photography has come a long way, but there are times when I pine for the film days :)

[Ed Cordes]

My take is leave it alone it looks good and also natural as is.