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description
Landmark photos are full of straight architectural lines, which is why a clone that matches the texture can still look obviously wrong. This Quick Tip clears tourists out of a shot of the Louvre Pyramid by aligning the Clone Stamp preview to the lines already in the scene, and covers when the Spot Healing Brush is the better tool for a small, isolated distraction.
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How to Remove Tourists from a Photo in Photoshop
This Quick Tip clears tourists and other passersby out of a landmark photo, matching the Clone Stamp tool’s preview to the scene’s existing lines so the repaired area lines up cleanly with straight architectural edges.
Comparing Before and After
The video opens on a before-and-after comparison of the same landmark shot, with tourists scattered around the reflecting pool in the original and the same area clear in the finished version, setting up what the rest of the technique is meant to achieve.
Panning Around the Image with the Hand Tool
Holding the Space bar temporarily switches to the Hand tool, which makes it easy to pan around a zoomed-in image while cloning, without having to switch tools back and forth between every retouching move.
Matching Edges with the Clone Stamp Preview
The Clone Stamp tool’s on-canvas preview shows exactly what will be painted before the brush touches down, and lining that preview up with the straight edges already in the scene, like the border of the reflecting pool, is what keeps a cloned-over area from breaking the photo’s existing lines.
Sampling with Alt or Option
Holding Alt on a PC, or Option on a Mac, sets the sample point the Clone Stamp tool paints from, and that sample point can be reset as often as needed to keep pulling from clean, tourist-free areas nearby.
Cleaning Up Small Spots with the Spot Healing Brush
For smaller, more isolated distractions, the Spot Healing Brush handles the cleanup without needing a manually chosen sample point at all, since it automatically pulls texture from the surrounding area.
When to Reach for It Instead of the Clone Stamp
The Spot Healing Brush works well on small, contained spots surrounded by fairly consistent texture, while the Clone Stamp tool’s manual sample point stays the better choice near a straight edge or a busy area where an automatic texture guess is more likely to go wrong.
Using the Clone Stamp Tool for Larger Removals
For a larger person or group taking up more of the frame, the Clone Stamp tool is used directly, sampling from nearby clean background and painting it over the area to be removed in sections rather than in one single pass.
Repainting Over an Area as Needed
Any area that doesn’t blend convincingly on the first pass gets repainted, resampling and stamping over the same spot again until the texture matches the surrounding image and no trace of the original tourist remains.
Working in Sections Rather Than One Pass
Repainting a section at a time, rather than trying to remove an entire person in one continuous stroke, makes it easier to keep resampling from clean background as the area being covered changes shape and size.
More Free Photoshop Tutorials
- Remove People from Landscape Photos in Photoshop
- How to Use the Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop
- Generative Fill vs Clone Stamp vs Healing Brush
Why This Technique Works
Landmark photos usually have strong architectural lines running through them, so a clone or heal that ignores those lines is easy to spot even when the texture itself matches. Watching the Clone Stamp preview and aligning it to those lines before painting is what makes the repair disappear into a scene like the Louvre Pyramid’s reflecting pool, rather than leaving a smudge where a person used to stand.
Final Thoughts
Removing tourists from a landmark shot comes down to picking the right tool for each distraction, the Spot Healing Brush for small, simple spots and the Clone Stamp tool with a carefully matched preview for anything near a straight edge or large enough to need a deliberate sample point, then repainting until every trace blends in.
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