Photoshop CS6 / Content-Aware Fill

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Magically retouch images with Content-Aware Fill

The Content-Aware family of tools in Adobe® Photoshop® CS6 software lets you retouch or recompose images with such ease, control, and speed it feels like magic. Content-Aware Fill, the acclaimed retouching tool, was introduced in Photoshop CS5 and has been enhanced in Photoshop CS6.

What is Content-Aware Fill?

Content-Aware Fill is an excellent tool to use when you want to remove unwanted content from an image. Maybe you want to get rid of a power line that obscures parts of a building and the sky in your photo. Or maybe you’ve scanned an old print, and you want to repair the scratches and tear marks in the digital version. Whatever object or detail you want to remove, Content-Aware Fill can not only remove the content, but it can also fill in the affected area to make it look as though the removed content never existed.

Image retouching challenges

In the days before Content-Aware Fill, removing image content and then retouching the affected areas was a painstaking process that could take hours to do successfully. For example, let’s say you wanted to remove a lamppost that was obscuring bits of sidewalk, hedge, building façade, roof, and sky. In the past, you would likely have used the Clone Stamp tool to clone small sections of sidewalk, hedge, brickwork, and other areas and then carefully apply them section-by-section to the area where the lamppost had been.

How does Content-Aware Fill solve the problem?

Content-Aware Fill uses imaging intelligence to eliminate this labor-intensive retouching process. Once you’ve selected and deleted the unwanted object, the tool analyzes the surrounding pixels to determine the ideal colors, textures, and patterns to use as fill material. Then it automatically fills in the area where the object had been, matching lighting, tone, and noise.

Retouch with unprecedented speed

Content-Aware Fill gives you a quick and easy way to perfect your images. Simply delete the unwanted content, and this breakthrough technology magically fills in the space left behind. The Photoshop Spot Healing Brush also has a Content-Aware option, which means you can brush over unwanted content to make it disappear.

And Content-Aware technology powers additional Photoshop retouching tools, including Content-Aware Scaling and new Content-Aware Patch and Content-Aware Move.