People be gone

I should be packing but I decided to waste a little time this morning and play around with an old photo. We don't get to take vacations much anymore so we are left with old memories. One of the greatest places we ever traveled to was southern Spain, way back in 2012.

Now this was before the Americans had moved in and had reclaimed Spain and Portugal, much to the chagrin of the natives. You always had a bunch of drunken Irishmen and the English debauching on the Costa Brava but you just didn't go there. Andalusia was still good, no anti tourist protests or water pistols although we did witness an anti banker communist protest while in Madrid.

Anyway, as any photographer knows, one of the difficult things to do is to get a picture of any landmark that is not full of those pesky humans, of whatever nationality. Extremely hard to do. They really ruin your shot.

I took this picture in Granada, at the Alhambra.  Always loved the architectural form, but all those damn humans!

Well, lightroom has a new tool that does away with all that, removes their presence quicker than you can say Godzilla or Mothra. I started messing with it this morning and came up with this.

I was able to pull all the human forms out, in a manner of seconds, thanks to my new but mostly hated friend AI. I started with a larger crop that allowed me to get the cool water feature in the front.

I reduced the highlights on the building and sky and equalized the shadows below. Might brighten them back up a bit later.

But there was still this ugly metal staging on the right to deal with. And its reflection in the water. I brought the image into Photoshop and performed a few removal and cloning tasks, not perfect by any means but good enough for my purposes today.

Voila! I managed to depopulate my photo and come closer to capturing my original vision. Not a person in sight!  

Here is another shot of the Alhambra, teeming with people.

Presto, bye bye!

All gone. As people empty as the morning after. Nothing left but the coyotes and cockroaches. Had to go back and genocide a few pesky shadows in Photoshop. Now don't try this alone at home without supervision, kids. I look forward to messing with some other shots and ridding myself of all human presence.