Method 5: Content-Aware Move Tool

Method 5: Content-Aware Move Tool

The Content-Aware Move Tool works opposite from the Patch Tool. With this tool, we draw a selection area and then click that area and move it to a spot in the image where we want to relocate it. Photoshop fills the original spot by looking at the surrounding pixels. Let's get some practice.

Right-click the Patch Tool and then click the Content-Aware Move Tool...
On the Content-Aware Move Tool options bar, make sure New Selection is selected...
Staying in the same area of the photo, click and drag to create a selection area similar in shape to the one below...

Notice that when you release the mouse button that your drawing coverts to a selection outline
Click and drag the selection area to so that it covers the kiosk to the left...

Note when you release the mouse button that the kiosk has been replaced with the concrete area (and that your selection area now has resize handles around it)
Press Enter on the keyboard to apply the Content-Aware move
Press Ctrl+D to deselect...

The Content-Aware Move Tool is very useful for removing people and objects that are very close to items we want to keep like buildings and trees. Since we control the shape, we can make selections of any size and use those to replace anything we don't want in the image. Once again, keep in mind that Photoshop is not simply replacing the area you drag the selection over. Instead, it is blending the two areas together, so be careful what area you choose to move and what areas you choose to replace. If the areas are vastly different in color, tone, tint, etc, you will get all kinds of strange results.

I want to take a quick second here to point out something very important. As I mentioned back in the Introduction in the brief descriptions of each removal method, the Content-Aware Move Tool is generally used to move objects within an image. For example, instead of getting rid of the kiosk that we removed in this step, I could instead use the Content-Aware Move Tool to relocated the kiosk to a different part of the image. Photoshop would then fill the area that the kiosk originally occupied with concrete so that it would be impossible to tell where it originally came from.

As you can see from this step, the tool is just as capable at removing objects as it is in moving them. If you are working with images in the future and you need to move things around, keep in mind that the Content-Aware Move Tool is an effective tool to pull this off.

Go around the image and remove any people or objects that the Content-Aware Move Tool will be quick and effective on
HINT: As mentioned above, this tool works great on objects next to buildings, so take advantage of that, but be careful - if you try to replace objects that are really large you will get fuzzy distortions, so be ready to undo your changes and use a different method if this happens (fuzzy distortions are BAD because they make it obvious that something has been changed or removed, and we want to avoid this at all costs)

Let's save our work up to this point.

Save the image

In the next step, we will move away from individual tools and use a method that, while similar to the tool used in this Step, gives Photoshop a little more power to adjust our image.