Finally got one. I'm almost finished my Bingo card!

[Ben_Who]

It's amazing that I had to wait so long for it, but I finally got a customer who wanted a photo edited to reveal stuff that wasn't in the picture - in this case, the person with the photo wanted his grandmother edited out of it, but his grandmother was standing in FRONT of him. He didn't seem to understand that this would leave a grandmother-shaped hole in his shirt, rather than reveal his shirt behind his grandmother.

The problem was compounded by a would-be helpful manager who suggested using Photoshop's cloning tool to draw in the bits that were missing. The guy was wearing a patterned necktie and a striped shirt, and through the window behind him was some sort of seascape. I was basically being asked to draw a third of this guy and half the background, whole cloth, from the existing asymmetrical elements.

Yeah. I got that kind of time. And talent. And inclination.

[Bright_Star]

That kind of technology doesn't exist yet...lol.

[Argabarga]

Yes it does! I saw it on Star Trek once!

You just don't know how to do your job!!!!!!

[Crossbow]

Well, I guess, in theory it could be done with existing tools... and a fair bit of artistic talent... and a cubic assload of money...

I mean, Hollywood gets a lot of money for doing just that, right?

[EricKei]

What scares me is, there's an ad out for some "new"(??) type of consumer-level point-and-shoot camera that makes it look like the camera CAN do exactly that -- remove unwanted people from a picture, allowing whatever is behind to show through. What's better, it makes it look like it's being done from a single photo, in real time, on the camera itself. I can see that mayyyybe being possible if the cam took a bunch of shots while on a tripod so that it's not moving at all and then doing some compositing work...but the ad makes it look like you just click the photobomber (etc) and poof. >_<

Here;s one such ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flNomXIIWr4 -- not the one I was thinking of, but at least it LOOKS like they're sitting there for a while filming the base image

[Mr Hero]

When you get done with editing out the grandmother, I've got another photo for you. One of my female friends posted a topless picture of herself with her back facing the camera. Your job is to turn her around.

[mhkohne]

What scares me is, there's an ad out for some "new"(??) type of consumer-level point-and-shoot camera that makes it look like the camera CAN do exactly that -- remove unwanted people from a picture, allowing whatever is behind to show through. What's better, it makes it look like it's being done from a single photo, in real time, on the camera itself. I can see that mayyyybe being possible if the cam took a bunch of shots while on a tripod so that it's not moving at all and then doing some compositing work...but the ad makes it look like you just click the photobomber (etc) and poof. >_<

Here;s one such ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flNomXIIWr4 -- not the one I was thinking of, but at least it LOOKS like they're sitting there for a while filming the base image

Yea, I looked at one other of their ads as well and I sorta see what they are doing (taking series of images and then identifying people then swapping in parts of other images in the series).

If you look at their ad for group photos, I forsee some really creepy 'photos' coming out of that thing....

[Brojekk]

I think it would be easier to edit him out.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

EricKei,

That Scalado app seems interesting, but so far it doesn't seem they've actually got the tech in an actual released product. A few years back, I remember a photographer was doing the same thing with his canon DSLR tethered to a mac pro. They had that system down to only needing 15 seconds of video to create the composite image. My guess is that this is the next iteration of that technology.

We've had the technology to overlay video for quite a while, this is basically what you are doing when recording on a green screen. My guess on how the app works is that is is basically highlighting motion and using that to create the crop lines for what will be removed.

AmIright? heck if I know, Scalado seems to be pretty closed mouthed when it comes to their tech. Probably because they're trying to sell the tech to the mobile phone manufacturers.

[wolfie]

Even back in the film era, various model railroad publications talked about "telephone pole filters" - maybe you could use the digital equivalent of that?

[Ben_Who]

The thing is, all the photos we use have to be uniform for our publishing purposes. They all need the same 2x3 proportions, they all have to be black and white, and they all have to be filtered to look best for our production processes. So they have to be cropped and filtered, and we're not really allowed to use, say, landscapes. And we occasionally have to tell people who want the 24-room McMansion in the shot that they're going to look teeny-weeny in the resulting image. Sure, we can include the toy poodle on a leash 10 meters away, but you're going to be about the size of a grain of rice and the poodle is going to be a black speck in the distance.

Professional photos go through our process very well - something about the light balance or whatever means that transforming the picture to black and white requires very little adjustment. Most of our photos, though, were shot candidly. Candlelit birthday parties in dark, gloomy restaurants? Check. A guy out on the sun deck with a baseball cap, his face no more than a mass of black shadow? Got two this week. Sweaty bald pale white guys on boats wearing white shirts, the sun gleaming off their foreheads? Daily. Elderly women who wind up looking like they've been punched in both eyes? Got one now.

It is EXTREMELY, VITALLY IMPORTANT that these people have their photo included with their product. Not important enough, however, to sit for a Sears photographer for five minutes and have a decent one done. Nope - I get to pick your face out of the group of 200 sepia-toned World War II veterans from your platoon, either because that's the most important picture you have, or because in your 90 years of life, that's the ONLY picture you've got. "Do you maybe have a better..." "NO." "Your nana's going to look like a Star Wars villain when we..." "That's the only one we could find." "She's 77 years old; no one aimed a camera at her in all that time?" "SHE WANTS THAT ONE." "All right; one Mos Eisley special, coming up..."

[MadMike]

I was basically being asked to draw a third of this guy and half the background, whole cloth, from the existing asymmetrical elements.

I did something sort of like that once. I spent the better part of a year scanning a big box of film pictures going back 20+ years, and any that had my ex in them, I either didn't scan or I cropped her out of them. But there was this one that I couldn't do that with. I was a picture of my son, her, and his great-grandma in front of the hood of my car. My ex was in the middle, and cropping her out would have meant also cropping out either my son or his great-grandma, which I didn't want to do. So I ended up doing a half-assed job of drawing the rest of the car over top of her. I can't draw for shit to begin with, and I really can't do it on a computer.

[jiarby]

Then he wants to complain about paying $1.29 for the print!

[emax4]

I did something sort of like that once. I spent the better part of a year scanning a big box of film pictures going back 20+ years, and any that had my ex in them, I either didn't scan or I cropped her out of them. But there was this one that I couldn't do that with. I was a picture of my son, her, and his great-grandma in front of the hood of my car. My ex was in the middle, and cropping her out would have meant also cropping out either my son or his great-grandma, which I didn't want to do. So I ended up doing a half-assed job of drawing the rest of the car over top of her. I can't draw for shit to begin with, and I really can't do it on a computer.

I can't imagine Eddie (your avatar) being a bad drawer, esp with the badass Iron Maiden covers over the years. Do you happen to have that picture to share with us for comedic purposes?

[Pixilated]

Well, I guess, in theory it could be done with existing tools... and a fair bit of artistic talent... and a cubic assload of money...

*snip*

And probably a LOT of time in which you have nothing else to do ...