Alien Skin produces one of our favorite B&W tools: Exposure 2 (our review). This time we check out Alien Skin's image repair tool Image Doctor 2. This tool can do many sorts of image repairs but we will focus our review only on the "Smart Fill" functionality.
There are two situations very common in photography:
- Some dirt spoils the image
- Some elements at the border of the photo distract
Removing dirt
Sample 1
You can find in our area bird droppings everywhere. Too much can easily ruin an image. Correcting this is a fast and easy process in Image Doctor 2 (works now also 16-bit).
First you select the area where the droppings are (we also feather by 1 or 2 pixels).
Create selection (100% pixel view)
Then you launch the Image Doctor 2 filter which shows a full screen dialog. We manually move the source area until the spot is seamlessly removed.
Image Doctor 2 Interface
The resulting correction is close to perfect:
Corrected area (100% pixel view)
Sample 2
Again bird droppings ruined a colorful wall.
Before
After
Can this be done with Photoshop cloning? Yes, but it requires often a lot more work to get the same quality results.
Cleaning up image borders
We had this photo:
Before
The tree trunk on the left is distracting and cropping would ruin the composition (tree shape). Here Image Doctor 2 came for rescue:
Before
After
We think the correction is good enough that it will be hard to detect in the final print:
After
This would be even harder to do in CS3.
What about truth and photography?
These photos are no documentation. In the end it is your own personal decision.
- Bird dropping: Cleaning the wall would get the same result :-)
- Removing other elements: You could cut the trunk and put it away.
Conclusion
We find Image Doctor 2 an excellent product and don't want to miss it.
Alien Skin Web Site
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