Day at the park

[pic-dr]

Hi all,

Just got this new pic to fix, and am seeking advice. In some places, particularly the trees on the left, I'm having a hard time telling the forest, um, rather the damage from the trees. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated muchly :)

[Bambi]

Good job so far, Larry. All of your fixes look a little blurry. You can use the Clone Stamp tool to fix the white areas in the sky. Do you know how to use Free Transform? You could select a good part of the big trees, feather 2 px, paste it into a new layer and move it over the damaged part. Use Free transform to make is fit exactly. If you hold down the Control/Alt/Shift keys and hit E, it will combine your layers into a New Layer and leave your old layers in your palette. Now use your Patch tool to match the grain in the bark perfectly.

You seem to have made a bigger correction in the grass at the bottom. I'd go back to a previous layer (before you fixed the grass). Select the damaged grass with the Lasso. Feather 2 px. Using the up arrow key, move the selection up until it is just above the damage. Copy and paste into a new layer and use the down arrow to move it into place.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with the Transform functions. You'll notice that if you make small adjustments, the texture remains intact. If you go too far, it all blurs.

Bambi

[pic-dr]

Thank you for all that great advice Bambi, I appreciate it :) I don't know what 'free transform' is, but I'll look it up and use it. While experimenting, I just used something like that technique using polygonal selection and color alteration (although I feathered too much, at 5) to attempt to repair both the color and texture of the trees, but I know your approach will yield much better results, so I will definitely use them.

Fortunately, this time around, I made enough layers, so that I can retrieve anything I need, all the way back to the original, and all major steps. I'll post the latest--please bear in mind, it is only a wip--but you can see the improvement in the trees I think. Both the trees and the grass are yet to be done by selections and free transform once I learn them. 

Again, thank you,
L