2 different ways to remove people for photos in Photoshop

Let’s examine 2 ways to remove a person from a photo. There are two scenarios.

2 Scenarios: The first is when you are the photographer.

In this case, I always get the shot and then have the model leave the scene and shoot a clean background plate. In this case, I used a photo from Adobe Stock, and I searched for more photos from the same shoot. I was able to get a different shot, but one that revealed a different part of the background. You will see how we use it right now.

Then we will look at the 2nd scenario, you are the retoucher/designer and you only have the single image to work with. This way, everyone should be covered 🙂

Technique #1 Remove people from a photo when you have more than one image to work with

Here is the starting photo. We will remove the person. Let’s go…

Step 1

Choose the Quick Selection brush

Click on Select Subject (If you are on CS6, you will need to brush over the subject to select it).

Your person will be selected. But we want a nice loose selection for a better background blend.

Step 2.

Choose Select>Expand>50 pixels

Step 3.

Press Shift+Delete (Shift+Backspace on Windows) this opens up fill.

Choose Content Aware and click ok

It does a pretty decent job to start with

We can go 2 ways from here. Either fix the rest of this photo (which we will do in a few steps) or use an additional photo to patch it. Lets look at the patch option right now.

Step 4. Using Multiple photos to remove a person.

If you have shot other photos at the same location, use an addition photo that is unobstructed in the area we are fixing.

Drag the new photo into the same document as our main photo. So we will have the 2 images on separate layers.

To combine, drag the photo into the tab at the top of the screen, of the other photo. Wait for the document to open and then move to the center of the image and then release. How to combine 2 photos.

Lower the opacity of the top layer to 50% so you can see both.

Using the move tool (V) reposition the top layer so that it lines up with the one underneath.
(Note you may have to rotate, scale and dirtier the layer to fit, if so, press Cmd/Ctrl+T for free transferm and right click for additional options).

Step 5.

Once you have lined up the layer, hide it with a mask: While holding down Alt/Option click on the new layer mask icon.

It will make a mask that is black and hides the top layer.

Step 6.

Choose a soft edged black brush.

Choose the black layer mask and paint over the area to patch.

Paint in the top layer over the area you want to hide (The video above shows all this).

Here I have painted it the top layer over the top half of the photo. Notice it looks perfect. The only thing is the shadow on the cross walk. We will address that in the next technique.

Technique #2. Removing a person from a photo with a single image.

Here we will remove a person from a photo without using a second photo to patch the image. This is the technique you will use if you only have a single image to work with.