Remove wires from a photo

A power line is the hardest thing to paint with a brush and the easiest to describe with points: it is long, thin, gently sagging and the same width all the way. Painting it freehand leaves a wobbling region that is too wide in places and misses in others. Clicking along it — five or six points for a span across the frame — gives a curve through those points at one width, which covers the wire and very little else.

Thin regions are where the edge march is at its best. It advances from both sides of the line at once, colouring each pixel from the intact sky or wall a pixel or two away, so a wire across a clear sky comes out invisible. Where the wire crosses a roofline or a branch, that short stretch is better done separately with the clone or the patch search.

1. 1Click along the wire. Start at one end and click every so often along it. More points on a sag, fewer on a straight run.
2. 2Set the width. Just wider than the wire, including its soft edge. The band on the stage shows exactly what will be covered.
3. 3Press Enter. The line becomes part of the region. Draw the next wire the same way.
4. 4Erase. The edge march fills every line from both sides.
5. 5Fix the crossings. Where a wire crossed an edge, paint that stretch, pick the clone or the patch search, and erase it as its own removal.

• Where a wire crosses a strong edge — a roofline, a window frame — the edge march smears the edge. Handle those stretches separately.
• A thick cable close to the camera is a removal, not a line; paint it with the brush and use the patch search.
• The curve passes through your points; it does not find the wire. Points placed off the wire mark the sky instead.
• Nothing here recognises poles, pylons or insulators; mark them yourself.