Shot through a fence - remove wire?

[RKDauph]

Ok, so I'm a grandpa.

I'm trying to make a "PopPop teaches animals" book for my grand daughter, 2yo this month. I went to the FTW Zoo yesterday to get the photos. Above is an example of some shots and a blurred fence, is there a way to remove or minimize the fence?



Yes, I know my 2 year old grand daughter will neither notice nor care about the fence, but - well, you know how it is.

I have both the NEF and fine JPG versions.

[brad]

Convince the subject to stand farther back and then shoot it the same way and the fence will disappear.... of course, you gotta talk to the mountain lion...

[RKDauph]

<g> Some of my other subjects were a bit more accommodating to that request. This guy saw something of interest and came at the fence quickly from the brush. I'd hate to be that 'something' in the wild, he can move...

[ramblinray]

I know we all want perfect images to use, but let's be realistic. You're working with a two year old. At that age, anything PopPop does is fine. Let her grow up and be a teenager, then she'll rip your work apart. Enjoy the now!

[RKDauph]

I do know and said so above. It's the eternal perfectionist vs realist struggle. And I might have learned another post process trick.

[Gabby498]

Well, I can never resist the challenge to do the impossible. Don’t know that you can remove the fence, but you can make it less noticeable. This was done in Nikon Capture NX.

[RKDauph]

Which is one of the options I asked about. Good job and thanks. Dodge and burn? Blur tool?

[Gabby498]

Ray, neither. It was done using the U-Point technology in Nikon Capture NX. U-Point allows you to select a color and then manipulate it for hue, saturation, brightness, contrast, red, green, blue and warmth.

Just playing I used three separate combinations. First I selected the gray of the fence on the far left and then using the eye dropper in the color picker picked up a nearby brown and shaded the gray to match. In some of the cat on the left I just selected the gray of the fence and using the red and blue sliders changed the color to where it was warmer. On the far right of the cat I selected a gray and going to the color picker just moved the point around till it matched better then did some brightness and saturation adjustments. In all it took less then ten minutes of playing. Since you have the original NEF file using these techniques you could probably eliminate the fence. One thing that I could have done to keep it closer to your photograph was to set some control points for colors that I did not want changed. This can be done before or after making corrections. For Instance the gray of the background on the far right, with my corrections it has gone toward the color of the cat. With a little work in setting control points I could have kept that gray. I am in the beginning stages of learning how to use the control points but it is a very powerful technology. Also a little cloning, not available in NX, could have softened some of the lines of the fence on the left to disguise it even more.

[RKDauph]

Thanks again. I have Capture but haven't taken the time to learn it. I'll give it a try.