How to get a full background from a photo?

Question

Usually one wants to get rid off the background in a photo. In my case I want to get rid of the 'objects' of the photo and remain with a 'full background'. By full background I mean that I'd like to fill the spots where the objects where with what the background would have had. If the background is a solid color, then that's easy. I just draw a shape on top with the same solid color. But when the background is more complex, like the skyline, what do I do?

In my impression, it should be possible to 'extend' the background 'horizontally'. See this 49sec video for a demo. Any software/script/PS feature that does that? Any alternative solution? I'm trying to remove the skyscrapers from this image, and remain with skyline:

Answer 1

That demo video is painful to watch. I can't think of a slower way to do what you seem to want to do. It's also not clear which skyline you want to keep, since the skyscrapers are the skyline.

The Clone Stamp tool, used carefully, works very well for this kind of replacement.

If you have CS5 or CS5.1, select the existing sky, jump it to a new layer, then use Content Aware Fill (with "Sample All Layers" unchecked) to fill the empty area where the buildings used to be. The selection doesn't need to be precise. That will give you a layer that's all sky. You can then select and copy from your original layer any buildings you want to keep, and put them on a layer above the sky.