Content Aware Scaling in CS4 - Please Post Yours

[Patti Edens]

I was playing around with the Content Aware Scaling feature in CS4 and for a first try, I thought it did a pretty good job for a 5 second fix. The photo I chose to play around with wasn't too much of a challenge for it though.

Has anyone else played with this feature? If so, please post your results here. I'd like to see some examples of when it can be used.

My example is below. By the time I found this windmill, the sunrise was long over, but I took a few shots to see if it would be worthwhile coming back at sunrise the next day. I wanted the house, the windmill and the tank all in one shot, but I couldn't get positioned to get it with the lenses I had. So, I thought I'd try the CAS feature in CS4 to pull them all together. It worked fairly well. When I went back to shoot it at sunrise, it was a lousy sunrise, so I still have to work on that.

[VietNinjaXTC]

Wow, I remember seeing a stand alone program that was supposed to do this. I had no idea the CS4 had this capability.

[Patti Edens]

Jeff, It is in the Edit menu near the Free Transform, etc tools. You just rename or unlock the background layer since it won't work on background layers. Then you click Edit > Content Aware Scaling and it puts handles around the photo.

You just grab the handles and drag them inward - either all from one side or from both sides or from top down or bottom up or whatever you want to do. When you have it the way you want it, you just hit Enter. It literally takes 5 seconds.

I need to try it with more photos, but I don't usually think to use it.