AFTER
Down below is an image I spent about 7 hrs on editing. It is the final product of the image below it.
BEFORE
As you can tell I did a lot of work to make this image what it needed to be. The funny thing is I could have made a 7 hour project into a five minute project. Back in school I had an instructor get on my ass every day because I refused to use a tripod, I thought I was way too cool for a tripod haha. Truth is I took this image on a tripod but I forgot to take the second image.
Here is what I had intended to do...Step one, PUT MY CAMERA ON A TRIPOD! Step two, figure out your composition and keep it stationary. Step three, put your light source wherever you desire and take the shot. If it looks great take another shot just for screw sake. Once you love it, take a final shot with nobody in it and expose for the background. I forgot to do step four during this shoot. I was in a hurry with the wind and completely forgot. But it's okay because lesson learned...
What I did to fix this image was start out with a simple clone stamp. I began to clone stamp my wife out of the image by cloning out the stepping stool as well as her all together. The trick is to have your clone source very close to what you are cloning out that way it blends easily(I mean obviously right but just incase you didn't). I used this method for about half of the final image. I began to clone stamp the camera left wall but there was no source to match the rest of the surrounding areas so I decided to select and copy the camera right wall and manipulate it to fit the opposite wall. It really was not hard at all, I just used the triangle section tool and made a copy of it and the rest is magic. The hardest parts were "getting rid" of the cars and signage behind them as well as the sky. The thing is in photoshop you don't get rid of anything you only add more on top to make it look like it's gone(weird).
Well I hope you guys enjoyed the read and understand a little of what I had to do to make the image work. Sometimes it's easier to just delete an image that doesn't work but sometimes you've gotta do what you gotta do!