Fastest way to edit this problem???

Hi everyone. I volunteer my time taking photos of the local high school dramas. They don't allow photography by the audience members, but I am allowed to photograph them (and provide the photos free of charge). The problem is that I must stand in the balcony to shoot. The stage floor poses a big problem because while it isn't visible from the floor of the theater, it is quite visible from my vantage point. There are scratches, paint splotches, and a variety of smooth and rough surfaces. The sides of the stage are bare 2x4's as you can see in the photo. I'm just looking to smooth out the stage and remove any eyesores so the attention is on the students, not the stage floor.

Since I take 200+ photos per production, editing the stage floor that many times does take quite a bit of time. I use Photoshop Elements 10 and use the Spot Healing Brush for cleaning up a lot of it. Is there some other way that might work faster while retaining the original lighting/shadows from the spotlights? When I use a telephoto lens, the marks are even larger and more noticeable. I use a D600 with either a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 or a Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lens (tripod as no flash is allowed).

I'm open to any suggestions. I will admit I'm not fully knowledgeable about how PSE10 works so I'm hoping there will be alternative methods to clean up the stage floor. For the sake of their privacy, I made sure to blur out the students. Thank you for any suggestions!

By far the easiest way to fix the problem might be to furnish the Flat Black Paint and have the students paint the floor. Other than that you are going to have to edit each spot out of the floor.

hark said:

... The stage floor poses a big problem because while it isn't visible from the floor of the theater, it is quite visible from my vantage point. There are scratches, paint splotches, and a variety of smooth and rough surfaces. The sides of the stage are bare 2x4's as you can see in the photo. I'm just looking to smooth out the stage and remove any eyesores so the attention is on the students, not the stage floor.

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Does Elements come with a Clone Tool? That's probably how I'd do it...




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Just shoot straight at the stage so you don't see the floor. Most professional stage productions are filmed in that way.

Thanks for the comments. Horoscope Fish, I will try out the Clone Stamp Tool. That is something I haven't yet tried so I'll see if it makes things any easier. Thanks for the suggestion.

As for painting the stage, it isn't an option. Some of the marks are from moving heavy pieces of the set around. Others are masking tape which act as markers where they stand so even if it was painted, it would get tape and marks on it by the time of a production. During the show times, the ONLY place I can shoot from is the balcony. BTW, the Quiet shutter mode on the D600 isn't very quiet. When using the Quiet shutter mode, there seems to be a slight lag time between when the shutter is pressed and when it actually takes the photo. Grrr... So I don't tend to use it. It is even announced that no photography is allowed although I have their permission providing I shoot from the unused balcony. No patrons sit up there so it's just me along with some of the lighting crew members. I have taken photos during dress rehearsals which allows me to stand on the theater floor, but the actors don't always have full makeup on. Plus they sometimes tweak things between the dress rehearsal and productions so there are changes (such as clothing, hair, and makeup).

Not one person from their organization has ever complained about the stage floor. During their bigger productions, I always try to completely edit it. For the smaller productions, I only edit the larger spots because of the time constraints. Since I don't know everything about PSE10, I was hoping to find an alternative method which might work a little faster.

Thanks again for your help! If there are any other alternatives to the healing brush/spot healing brush, please let me know. I will definitely check out that Clone Stamp Tool, Horoscope Fish.

par example from Les Miserables (not my photo)....

Thanks, crycocyon. I will once again try taking photos of their dress rehearsal which can be shot from a similar vantage point, but the actual production photos must be taken from above. It's my preference to take them from the theater floor because they do look much better.

I don't see why you can't shoot from the floor because the stage is elevated, just as in the Les Mis photo I show. You also seem to agree that the lower vantage point is better...I think it is more dramatic. What stipulation is there that the production photos have to be taken from above? Isn't that your decision as the photographer? Sorry if I am not understanding something.

crycocyon said:

I don't see why you can't shoot from the floor because the stage is elevated, just as in the Les Mis photo I show. You also seem to agree that the lower vantage point is better...I think it is more dramatic. What stipulation is there that the production photos have to be taken from above? Isn't that your decision as the photographer? Sorry if I am not understanding something.

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It's the decision of the drama department. I don't think Broadway theaters allow photography, and the drama department tries to keep the scenario as real as a live Broadway show. I understand their reasoning and respect their decision. After all, I'm the one who asked to do this, and they are accommodating me. I've learned more about the ins and outs of PSE10 from doing this than anything else!

I see, hehe, then tell them the floor needs to be cleaned/polished or resurfaced. Or just let them know what they can expect the floor to look like in those lighting conditions, show them those examples you showed us, and ask if you can shoot lower. But, I mean, everything from Broadway to ballet to stage shows are shot at eye level for more dramatic images. But, if they want it that way, there isn't much else you can do.....except.........................


shoot it both ways, and before playing with photoshop, show them just how good the images can look taken from eye level

crycocyon said:

I see, hehe, then tell them the floor needs to be cleaned/polished or resurfaced. Or just let them know what they can expect the floor to look like in those lighting conditions, show them those examples you showed us, and ask if you can shoot lower. But, I mean, everything from Broadway to ballet to stage shows are shot at eye level for more dramatic images. But, if they want it that way, there isn't much else you can do.....except.........................


shoot it both ways, and before playing with photoshop, show them just how good the images can look taken from eye level

Click to expand...

The only problem I can foresee (I think) with correcting in PSE, (or any editor, for that matter), is going to be making the floor look properly exposed. Even with it being as black as it is, it's going to have some reflectivity and cloning it, or what have you, is going to really mess with that reflectivity and probably look very unnatural. But then I'm certainly no Master of Editing, either...

crycocyon said:

I see, hehe, then tell them the floor needs to be cleaned/polished or resurfaced. Or just let them know what they can expect the floor to look like in those lighting conditions, show them those examples you showed us, and ask if you can shoot lower. But, I mean, everything from Broadway to ballet to stage shows are shot at eye level for more dramatic images. But, if they want it that way, there isn't much else you can do.....except.........................


shoot it both ways, and before playing with photoshop, show them just how good the images can look taken from eye level

Click to expand...

Horoscope Fish said:

The only problem I can foresee (I think) with correcting in PSE, (or any editor, for that matter), is going to be making the floor look properly exposed. Even with it being as black as it is, it's going to have some reflectivity and cloning it, or what have you, is going to really mess with that reflectivity and probably look very unnatural. But then I'm certainly no Master of Editing, either...

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For one of their shows, I took photos of the dress rehearsal as well as production photos. Not all of the students had full makeup and hair for the dress rehearsal so there was an advantage to taking the production photos even though they were shot from above with the marked up floor.

The school has an annual budget, and it is the responsibility of the principal to determine how the money is used. Perhaps the stage floor will get done one of these years.

For some of their shows, I clean up the floor as much as possible, and it really does make a difference; however, it really is a time-consuming task so I don't do it for all their shows. Since one of the students met the playwright, and the playwright requested photos for her website, here is one of the photos that they allowed to be displayed publicly:




They don't allow any flash so I am at the mercy of the lighting crew and must work within the parameters of the stage lights and/or spotlights. The floor is somewhat cleaned up although I never get it perfect.

Thanks again for all the info. I will look into the Clone Stamp Tool. After watching a YouTube video of how it works, I can already envision using it for a church building photo I took this past spring! I will also try it out on one of the production photos to see if it will work any better or faster than the methods I've been using.

Nice shot....certainly a challenging set of parameters to work around for the shoot. I can see how in that instance shooting from higher up shows more of the interaction since someone is on the floor. Sounds like you are doing a fine job....even cleaning the floor for them! That's dedication.

If you were shooting from a locked tripod and a fixed focal length then I would say "Shoot the blank stage and create a baseline image that heals all the spots in Lightroom and then sync those healing spots with the populated images and delete the ones that are now behind people and fix those that now fix stage spots with body parts." Alas, I don't think your doing that.

BackdoorHippie said:

If you were shooting from a locked tripod and a fixed focal length then I would say "Shoot the blank stage and create a baseline image that heals all the spots in Lightroom and then sync those healing spots with the populated images and delete the ones that are now behind people and fix those that now fix stage spots with body parts." Alas, I don't think your doing that.

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Jake, I shoot with a tripod but use both my Sigma 24-70mm and Sigma 70-200mm lenses. Mostly I use the 70-200mm to zoom in while also being able to show a little more detail at 70mm. I try not to use the 24-70mm as much because at 24mm, it covers the entire stage (and thus needs the most editing for the floor).

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but are you suggesting I use layers? It sounds that way, and that isn't something I've even thought of trying. I can take 3-4 photos of the stage floor (24mm, 70mm, 100mm, and 150mm) to possibly try and see if I can edit the floor through a second layer. At 200mm, it's so tight that normally the stage floor doesn't get in the photo. Hmm...might be worth a try!!!

It's purely a Lightroom technique. Take a reference photo and use the Spot Removal tool on the reference. Lightroom tracks each adjustment and stores them with the photo. Another photo taken from the exact same place, orientation and focal length will have the stage is in the exact same place in the photo. In the Library module, click on the reference photo, then hold the Alt (Command on a Mac) key down and click on the photo you want to remove the dust from to highlight both of them. Now go to the Develop module and use the left/right arrow keys to display the reference photo. Now click on the Sync... button at the bottom right to bring up the settings pop-up. Uncheck everything but the "Spot Removal" and click Synchronize. All of the dust removal settings from the reference photo will be applied to the new photo.

If you apply lens correction or other settings universally you can synchronize them as well at this time. And if you have multiple photos to do from the same orientation and focal length you can open all of them at once and synchronize the baseline Spot Removal adjustments to all of them at once.

Once you're done with that, you then need to review each photo individually to see if any of the baseline adjustments now obscure your subject rather than dust, or overlay dust with part of a person instead of blank stage. It's still a manual process, but at least you have a head start on it.

Jake, once again thank you for the information!

One more question on this process...when I start with a reference photo, do I need to create a new reference photo each time I photograph their productions? They perform @5 times per year. Thanks again!