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I have a picture shot on a white background, however the white background didn't cover the whole frame. The sides of the image show unwanted objects. I would like to erase these side parts such that it also is white as the general background.

I know I can do this in Photoshop by selecting and deleting the side parts, leaving the white background layer.

However, I need to use Lightroom for this. Any way I can just erase out objects with a brush leaving a white background?

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3 Answers 3

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It's hard to say if this is easily doable in Lightroom without a sample image, but I think there are two ways to do this. The used tools are found in the Develop module.

Spot removal

  1. Click the spot removal icon:
    enter image description here
  2. Set the brush type to clone:
    enter image description here

  3. Adjust parameters to your liking. A good start is: feather = 10, size = 50, opacity = 100.

  4. Now click on the background which you want removed, and make sure it uses the white background as the clone source. If necessary drag the source region (circle with arrow pointing out) to a more suitable place. Repeat until all your unwanted background is replaced by the white background..

Graduated filter

  1. Click the graduated filter icon:
    enter image description here
  2. At the sides create a mask covering the unwanted background and let the mask overlap the white background a bit.
  3. Turn the exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows up.
  4. Turn clarity and saturation down.

This should blow out the unwanted background to white, blending nicely with the already existing white background.

If none of these methods work Photoshop is the way to go.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ First method can work with some careful tweaking and crossing fingers that LR doesnt bug at the edges, which it often does. If the parts to remove are small, it could work, though. Second method assumes that his true whites are clipped, too, which is unlikely, since you normally want to gave room for some subtle shading in the whites. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael Nielsen
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 9:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ As noted, without a sample image this is the best I can come up with. \$\endgroup\$
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Commented Jan 29, 2014 at 11:26
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You should treat the non-white area as a big "spot", and then use the spot-removal tool. http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help/enhanced-spot-removal.html has a great explanation, including a video that walks you through it.

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It may be possible, but it is going to be tricky. Since Lightroom is non-destructive, it is really more targeted towards making minor corrections to an image such as individual spots. Your easiest bet is probably a crop rather than trying to paint over the background since it will be difficult to get the spot removal tool to overlap each other and cover the whole area. As BartArondson mentioned, you could also use a gradient and clip everything to white, but this really a bit hacky for what you are trying to do.

That kind of manipulation is really most intended for a tool like Photoshop.

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