Eliminate Tourists from Photos

Boing Boing (linked to from my main page) points out a bit of computer magic to help remove tourists (and other moving objects) from your photos. And it’s free.

The idea is that you take a few shots of the same background, while tourists walk around in front of you. Each of your photos will show tourists in different positions, and will also show different unblocked parts of the background (which is what you’re really taking a picture of).

Then, Tourist Remover will piece together those bits of background and eliminate the moving bits (tourists).

It’s a great idea, and beats my sloppy cloning work on the top-right section of the top photo above to come up with a prettier version without tourists (bottom).

The key is to have the foresight to take several pictures, without moving, while the tourists walk by. But if you can remember to do that, you’re on your way. Then you upload them to be fixed while you say, “what will they think of next?”