Using Content-Aware Fill to Fix Bad Compositions

From the f64 YouTube Channel:

Have you ever returned from a shooting location to find you had what could have been a good composition if you would have moved about 4 feet to the left or right? I know I have. It has happened to me more than once. I have good news for you. Photoshop has this Content-Aware Fill tool that can work wonders on situations just like this! You may have already seen the content-aware fill tool and used it many times. The technology behind the tool is in many other assets within Photoshop like the Clone Stamp Tool, the Content-Aware Move Tool, and the Patch Tool (to name a few). While I am sure the technology is sophisticated, it is effortless to use.

In this example, I use Content-Aware Fill to patch an area of the composition that never existed. Yep, I moved the image to the right, and that empty white space was filled in with grass, clouds, and even a finished road path. But how? Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill uses data from around the image to replace the white space. It is similar to the healing brush or even the dust removal tool in Lightroom. It assesses the environment it is replacing and looks for pixel data that is similar to it.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it can be if you understand that you will also need a bit of help fixing the areas it replaces. In today’s tutorial, I will show you how I use this technique to fix poor compositions and show you how to use the Clone Stamp Tool to repair the wonky-bits.

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