Is the "Content-Aware Fill" in CS5 as good as the

Netaddict

I use the clone tool a lot in CS4. They say that the CS5 Content-Aware Fill is really good and Adobe has shown videos of it working. From your experience, is it that good?

hawkeye · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 1:38 pm Post subject:

Sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn't work well at all. It really depends on the situation.

It is a valuable tool, but it won't do everything. There will be times when you'll need to use a different tool to get the job done right.

Netaddict · Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:46 am Post subject:

Thank you hawkeye for the clarification.

Through their videos, Adobe was promoting this tool as the Miracle. I had a gut feeling that Adobe showed us in their videos only the few circumstances where the tool worked perfectly.

I thought of upgrading from CS4 to CS5 for this tool, but I decided to wait, sooner or later a company will come up with a plugin or filter that does the same thing

No matter how smart software or hardware become, they will not be able to match human common sense.

YourOnlySin · Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 8:54 pm Post subject:

I don't know as if I'd upgrade from CS4 to CS5 just for this plugin but I will say that upgrading from Photoshop 6.0 Pro to CS5 and discovering content aware fill really had an impact on me.

It really does have its niche. Content aware fill can be used in conjunction with the spot healing brush and other tools and it can really save some time. I've found it invaluable for that. As Hawkeye said though, it doesn't work perfectly every time. When it does work, I've found it works well. Sometimes, it really amazes me how well it works. Other times, I have to get away from it completely in order to finish a project. When it comes to nature or landscape images, I think it really excels. When you need very precise reproduction in the background, for instance, it might be better to use something else.

I have a perfect example....on my website, there is an image of a woman in New York City. The photo is taken on top of a building looking over New York and there is a visible safety glass and steel frame behind her that obscures the view of the city below. I removed the steel framework behind her and now it looks as if she is standing with no protection behind her at all. It looks pretty good to the average person, but look closely at the buildings in the background and the sky.

I used the spot healing brush with content aware fill, primarily, to remove the background distractions. The resulting image is impressive at first glance, but upon close inspection you can clearly see that the content aware fill recreated buildings in an almost post apocalyptic sense. They don't look realistic at all.

Now, The image you see was completed in a matter of minutes and that, in itself, is pretty impressive. With some extra work, after using said tools, you could really create a nice image.

I really like the content aware fill feature but, I treat it like any other plugin or tool...it has its place and wont work all the time.

Netaddict · Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 7:30 am Post subject: A quick comparison

Now I have CS5, I made a quick comparison;

This is a picture I got off the net, I thought I'll try to remove the car on the right.

this is what content aware gave me. I tried brushing the area with the spot healing tool and got the same results as when I selected the car and used Edit>Fill with the content aware selected.

Content aware used to remove car

As a comparison, the next image is one I did myself, painstakingly slow and labor intensive.

This I did myself

YourOnlySin · Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:58 pm Post subject:

I've found that sometimes the Content Aware fill needs some cleaning up afterward if there is a lot of random details in the image that it has to create. But I'll tell you what..the spot healing brush with content aware fill is probably one of the best quick touch up tools I've found. That thing alone has saved me HOURS of work. You have to keep in mind, that this is software that is trying to figure out what the heck you want to look at. I think it does an astounding job of it for the most part, but it will use information that is close at hand to recreate an image......sometimes that doesn't work.

I upgraded to the CS5 collection from Photoshop 6.0 Pro, and I used that for more than ten years. I had to learn many things all over again but I tell you what...the new Photoshop is powerful in so many ways that I think I saved money by buying it now. Of course, I also use it as part of a paying job otherwise, it might be another ten years before I considered it.

Netaddict · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:44 am Post subject:

I totally agree about what an amazing job the content aware filter does. I don't know how Photoshop designed this crazy tool! Actually I'm "honored" that such a powerful program like Photoshop runs on our humble desktop and laptops.

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