Missing option in X6?

[Bodley]

Paintshop Pro 9.02 had the wherewithal to 'cover' a bit of a image with another bit.
Complicated and it went like this:
Select the bit you want covered.
Key M
Right drag the marquee over the bit you want to cover the original bit with.
Promote (Ctrl,Shift,P)
Deselect.
Key M
Left drag back over the original.
Merge all.
This works perfectly in X6 and I am sure it must be automated somewhere but I can't find it,
Any suggestions?

[MikeFromMesa]

Paintshop Pro 9.02 had the wherewithal to 'cover' a bit of a image with another bit.
Complicated and it went like this:
Select the bit you want covered.
Key M
Right drag the marquee over the bit you want to cover the original bit with.
Promote (Ctrl,Shift,P)
Deselect.
Key M
Left drag back over the original.
Merge all.
This works perfectly in X6 and I am sure it must be automated somewhere but I can't find it,
Any suggestions?

Could you please clarify for people like me with little previous PSP experience? Are you talking about covering part of an image with another part of the same image? Or with part of an image that is a second layer? Or part of a second loaded image? Or something else?

I am particularly interested because it might be a way for me to do some stuff I do not see how to do (yet) on PSP.

Thanks.

[Forriner]

I don't know about automation, but is this what you mean? It works without layers and switching tools.

1 Select the area that you want to cover with another part of the image.
2 Right-click in the selection and drag the marquee to the part of the image you want to cover the part with.
3 Float the selection (ctrl+F)
4 Right-click in the selection and drag it back to the place you want to cover.
5 Defloat the selection (ctrl+shift+F)
6 Right click to deselect.

Step 2a could be feathering the selection if needed, before floating.
Step 1 isn't really necessary, except to determine the exact dimensions you want to cover. If you just want to select something and copy it elsewhere, step one would be select what you want to copy elsewhere, and step 2 wouldn't be needed, straight to step 3.

You can repeat 3-4-5 as often as you want before deselecting in step 6.

[Bodley]

I can't see how to reply to individual posts so here goes to both of you:
Forriner. I will try without the M's and Floating instead of Promoting.
MikeFromMesa: I see you are down as a MAC user but Yes, Yes, No, No.

It is automated in Photoshop (Content Aware) but not as well as in my hand-crafted technique developed in 2005 PSP 9.02 and which still works in X6.

[Forriner]

Disclaimer: I have X4

Have you tried the Object Remover tool? It shares a button with the clone brush and scratch remover.
You'll need to have the tool options palette open (F4).

Options palette, click on the freehand selection tool and select the object to be covered/removed.
Then click on the 'source mode' button on the palette, and something resembling a crop rectangle shows up. Enclose the part you want to replace the object with. Use all layers or not, smart blending or not, opacity.
Then click on the Check mark to apply.

I don't really know what it's good for in X4, I tried it a few times and decided it's not for my type of photo.

[Bodley]

Object Remover in X6.
Thank you Forriner.
It works in X6 and is something to remember. It's probably not speciific enough for me.
It took me a while to find the crop rectangle because I was working with a much enlarged screen and the PSP programmers hadn't the wit to position it close to my initial tiny selection.

Now to combine the three photos of the garden I am working in as a panorama. But I am afraid it's back to Photoshop CS5's Photo Merge... Maybe X7?

[Forriner]

There are lots of free panorama stitchers, from almost automatic to very customizable. Here are just two:

Almost automatic: Microsoft Image Composite Editor

More work, learning curve etc.: Hugin - Panorama photo stitcher.

Have fun.

[MikeFromMesa]

Bodley and Fournier:

Thank you for the information. I have tried it out and it works very nicely. I guess learning PSP can be just as time-consuming and enlightening as learning Photoshop was for me quite some time ago.

What has surprised me, and I am a bit embarrassed to admit it, is that PSP seems pretty much as functionally complete as Photoshop, but a lot less expensive. The only real thing I have found missing is the large number of external apps that act well with Photoshop but are nonexistent for PaintShop Pro. Some examples - OnOne integrates very nicely into Photoshop through their Automation interface, but no such integration exists for PSP. PhotoMatix is working on a HDR plugin for PSP that will also work through the Automation interface, but no such add-on is planned for PSP. Vertas has masking software that works with Photoshop, but not PSP. PhotoNinja has both an ACR replacement and a plugin for Photoshop, but nothing for PSP. And so on.

I am not complaining (well, not much) since I have found PSP to be a very nice editor and I am quite happy with it, especially with the Perfectly Clear plugin, but I do wonder why these 3rd party apps do not have PSP analogues. I would have thought that PSP had a larger user base than Photoshop, but perhaps I am wrong about that.

[Bodley]

MikeFromMesa,
Horses for courses!
I had used PSP for many years. However when Corel took it over from JASC at version 9 there was a massive bug in it which wrecked some of my files. Hence I splashed out and bought PS CS2 for Windows. This was the WORST bit of software I have EVER used. Just after this I happened to buy two CF memory cards from Lexar and each one came with a mini CD with PSP 9.02 on it. Bug fixed and I used 9.02 until this year. My new Sony A77 camera takes very good raw 16 bit photos which I process in Photodirector (less hassle than having to load PS CS5 (works properly in Windows) and Camera RAW). PSP X6 has adequate 16 bit coverage. I use PSP 95% of the time (no Photo Merge) because of its superb two-monitor interface. eg. drag the Unsharp Mask dialog onto the second monitor and you can open it full-screen with its before and after views and ability to see the final result on the original monitor. Impossible for me to go back to PS or Elements for everyday use after this though as you say there are bound to be plugins for PS which won't work in PSP (I use a very good Russian plugin for perspective correction called Altostorm),
I think PSP suffers from the hype that PS Elements gets and having 'mastered' Elements PS is the logical next step (people don't know any better and neither do the reviewers - read Nikon and Canon DSLRs!). Also I feel that the word 'PaintShop' doesn't project a 'serious' image; even PhotoPaint might be better,
Time will tell...