Stalin Photoshop manipulation tutorial

Let's practice on a historical photo that was once already manipulated by the censors. We will now do it digitally with Photoshop.

Open a famous photo with Stalin and Commissar Yezhovom.

Click here to download the photo.

Choose the Clone Stamp Tool (press S for a keyboard shortcut).

Hold the Alt key and select a part of the river next to Commissar Yezhova.

We selected a part of the photo that will be a source for cloning.

Right click the document and choose an appropriate cloning stamp Size and set the Hardness to about 50% (see picture).

Now start cloning (clicking) over the Commissar or the person you want to get rid of.

Now we need to fix part of the photo where the head was. Again pick the source of the by holding Alt key, the release it and  start cloning carefully.


If you make a mistake just use the History window to redo the mistake.

Set the Opacity of the Clone Stamp Tool to about 30% (see picture).

Now start cloning the water, with less "power" as you set the Opacity to 30.

Let's now fix the railing, this time we will use a bit more precise technique.

In the menu click Filter and choose Vanishing Point...

In a new window click the Create Plane Tool (see picture).

Select the railing part of the photo that needs fixing the same way I did (see picture).

Now resize the selection horizontally (see picture).

Choose the Stamp Tool.

Now start cloning parts of the railing the same way you did it previously on the other parts of the photo.

Click OK when done.

Choose the Lasso Tool (press L for a keyboard shorcut).

No select the part of the photo next to Stalin and other parts that need some final fixing.

Now again use the Clone Stamp Tool to fix the remaining parts.

Wit the selection you limited the cloning only to the selected area  of the photo.

Done.

And the original photo for comparison.