Quick fixes in Capture NX-D

George Cairns demonstrates how to turn a quick snap into a more considered composition by cropping and retouching

Turn hasty snaps into stunning scenes

Sometimes our attempts to capture the perfect moment can be thwarted due to a lack of time. Take the inset ‘before’ image. Having just arrived to shoot the castle, I noticed a cyclist was about to peddle into the scene – having a person in shot would add foreground interest to the image and help give a sense of the ruined building’s scale. I snapped a shot before the cyclist disappeared around the bend but, being in a rush, I didn’t have time to carefully compose the image. As a result the shot suffers from a tilted horizon and is blemished by some ugly plastic bins in the foreground.

Fortunately we can use Capture NX-D’S digital darkroom tools to recompose a mediocre photo and create a cleaner and more classically composed scene. By using the Straighten tool we can counteract the wonky horizon and crop out the bins at the same time.

By cropping a shot you can remove unwanted edge objects with ease, but it’s harder to hide centrally framed objects, like the cyclist. However, you can use the Auto Retouch tool to transplant a patch of adjacent pixels over the cyclist and then seamlessly blend them with their new surroundings to create a cleaner frame. This tool can be useful if you want to sell a photo as stock but you don’t have a model release form signed by a subject.

measure the tilt

In the Capture NX-D’S Folders window browse over to our supplied Recompose_start.jpg image. Then, in the toolbar at the top, click on the Straighten icon. Then click-and-drag the tool along the tilted brick wall at the bottom of the castle to get a measurement of its angle.

adjust the crop

Click on the Crop tool’s icon. Set the Aspect Ratio to Photo Ratio. This constrains the Crop window to the same shape as the original image. Next, click-and-drag to draw a crop overlay. Drag inside the overlay to reposition it to lose the bins. Click Apply Ratio.

fine-tune the angle

Your initial rotation may not be perfect. In the Straighten and Perspective Control panel tick the Show Grid box. You can now manually drag the Straighten slider until the building’s walls run parallel with the vertical grid lines. Turn the grid off when you’re finished.

remove the cyclist

Select the Retouch Brush tool. In the Auto Retouch Brush panel, set Size to 100 (as we’re dealing with something larger than a speck of dust). Spray over the cyclist and some of his surrounding details. The tool should then automatically replace him with matching grass and road.