I hope everyone had a great time during the Holidays. For Lisa and I, we sure did. We got to spend some family time. As with any event, you always want pictures. In this case, it was no different. We went to a restaurant in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and after we were done, we wanted a quick picture. So you got it, the waiter took it with my iPhone. The picture is great for us. It did what we wanted. A memory.

We got back home, and I looked at the picture, and I thought. I wonder what this would look like if I got rid of the distractions. This will be an excellent picture to practice on. With that said, I opened photoshop and started to get rid of what I call the easy distractions. The easy thing I used is what is called the patch tool. Easy items would be like the glasses in front, the silverware in front. For me, it starts looking good. Next was let’s finish it with some of the hard things. Like Lisa with the napkin. Notice her hand is blocked. With that, I needed to make fingers that looked like they belonged. Out came the clone stamp. I had other tuff things and used a combination of clone stamp and brush tool. I got what I think is a better picture.

Practice makes perfect, the old saying goes. I m always practicing something. One to keep up with the new things out there, and second, to be good at anything, you need to practice and, yes, practice some more. That's what this exercise was all about. You see, the first picture will be fine; after all, it's not going to any magazine, but my thought was, what if a client wanted something removed? Can you do it?