Adobe working on content-aware fill tool for Photoshop
John Nack at Adobe recently posted a demo video of a hot new project in the works from Adobe Labs: content-aware fill in Photoshop. Where the current spot-healing tool in Photoshop (up to CS4) replaces the selected area using information from one other part of the image, the new content-aware version uses a technology called PatchMatch to fill in the hole using info from multiple surrounding points. The upshot is that you get a much more convincing automatic heal.
In the demo video, you can see how content-aware spot healing makes things like removing wires from a photo a whole lot easier, but there's also a new version of the fill tool for larger areas. You can use it to scrub out entire trees and big chunks of scenery, and the result seem pretty plausible.
When is this magical new feature coming to Photoshop? Maybe not ever, according to Nack's disclaimer, but it looks far enough along that I wouldn't be totally surprised to see it in the next major version.
In the demo video, you can see how content-aware spot healing makes things like removing wires from a photo a whole lot easier, but there's also a new version of the fill tool for larger areas. You can use it to scrub out entire trees and big chunks of scenery, and the result seem pretty plausible.
When is this magical new feature coming to Photoshop? Maybe not ever, according to Nack's disclaimer, but it looks far enough along that I wouldn't be totally surprised to see it in the next major version.













Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsSaint SeminoleOct 26th 2009 3:34PM
It's too bad they usually only release stuff like this in the newer versions of Photoshop, for another $800, instead of releasing them as plug-ins for older versions that we've already paid for...
Andrew JonesOct 26th 2009 4:46PM
This can only be described as witchcraft!... I sometimes think that software has reached a technological peak - but I'm still amazed by the innovation in software that is still happening.
erbmitNov 6th 2009 9:19AM
Theres no such thing as a peak in software technology. Given enough processing power and data storage, anything that can be described in an algorithm can be solved
alahmnatOct 26th 2009 5:02PM
Neat. Too bad I've already abandoned Adobe for everything save watching YouTube and Homestar Runner. Their products are bloated, poorly designed, incredibly buggy and unstable, and highly antiquated when compared to the high-quality alternatives that have sprung up over the past couple of years (on the Mac side of the fence, anyway... is there a Windows alternative to Photoshop besides GIMP and Paint.NET?). After using Pixelmator and DrawIt for 15 minutes, I'll never go back to Photoshop again.