Search articles from thousands of Examiners
Write for us
Detroit Gadgets and Tech SF Technology Examiner
SF Technology Examiner

Erase your friends for fun and profit

August 5, 3:51 PMSF Technology ExaminerJason Brooks
Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe


Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Technology Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.
Email Address


  Include other special offers from Examiner.com
Terms of Use

About a year ago, at SIGGRAPH 2007, researchers Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir presented a paper on content-aware image resizing--a method for resizing (and removing objects from) images without distorting them too much.

In a nutshell, the software identifies low-information seams within an image, and cuts out (or multiplies) those seams in order to decrease or increase the image's size without changing too drastically the meat of the image.

Avidan and Shamir produced an explanatory video on the technique, which I've embedded below. If you haven't yet seen this video, I recommend you check it out.

After I saw this video, I wished that my image editing program of choice, the Gimp, could be made to perform this trick. Fortunately, it wasn't long before a content-aware resizing plugin for the Gimp appeared, complete with support for identifying parts of an image to discard.

The plugin, called Liquid Rescale, is easy (and free) to acquire, and it's pretty straightforward to use, as well. Here's how to do it.

Step One: Bring out the Gimp

GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an open source application that's similar in function to Photoshop. I use the Gimp for all of my image manipulation needs.

  • If you're a Windows user, you can get the Gimp here.
  • If you're a Linux user, your computer probably came preinstalled with the Gimp.
  • If you're a Mac user, you can get the Gimp from a couple of different places, but if you're going to use the Liquid Rescale plugin, you'll have to follow the not-for-beginners directions here.
     

 Step Two: Get the Plugin

  • For Windows users, the plugin lives here.
  • For Linux users, the plugin is available here. I use Ubuntu 8.04, and I installed the plugin packages that had been built for the previous Ubuntu version, and they worked fine. Liquid Rescale is actually available straight from Ubuntu's software repositories, but in an older, slower version, so stick with packages l've cited here.
  • For Mac users, follow the instructions in the link above. (again, sadly, they involve some software compilation--not the end of the world, but by no means noob-friendly.
     

 Step Three: Use the Plugin

  • Fire up the Gimp, and open an image you'd like to manipulate. I'm looking to erase this friendly-looking dog from the waters of Ocean Beach.
  • Next, open the Liquid Rescale plugin dialog at "Layer," "Liquid Rescale."
  • In the section of the dialog labeled "Feature discard mask," hit the "New" button. This will create a new layer to define the part of your image you'd like to do away with.
  • Use the Gimp's pencil tool to color the part of the image you wish to discard red. I've found that drawing a border around the part of the image, and then using the paint can tool to fill it in works pretty well.
  • Back at the Liquid rescale dialog, hit the "Refresh" button to refresh your layer, and then click the "Autosize" button to have the software reduce the image enough to erase the bit you're cutting out.
  • Next, hit "OK" and let the plugin work its magic.
     

I've found that the Liquid Rescale plugin usually works fairly well, but results vary from image to image. In this beach image example, the lines of surf on either side of the dog I've cut out don't quite match up, and there's a visible seam where the dog had been. I found that a bit of judicious smudging helped matters. Also, I've found that in order to completely excise certain parts of an image, I've had to fiddle with the "Strength" slider.

 

For more info: Want to work this magic with Photoshop? I found this link courtesy of Google. I haven't tried it, so if you do, let me know how it goes.
More About: gimp · graphics

Add a Comment

Name:


Comments:
characters left

NOTE: Do Not Alter These Fields:

Recent Articles

Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Rumor has it that next week, Apple will release its 2.2 upgrade for the iPhone and iPod Touch. If the reported feature enhancements for 2.2 are …
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Last night during CNN's election coverage, after it was clear that Obama would become the country's 44th president, pundit Alex Castellanos wondered …

Things to see and do

Hidden World of Bears, The
23 Nov 2009 - 10 am
Detroit Zoo
More art »
Detroit Collects, Part 1: The Nature of Art
Wayne State University – Elaine L. Jacob Gallery