Best way to extend the grass in this photo? (CS4)

[tomjonesrocks]

I am looking for suggestions on how I might best extend the lower grass area in this photo through the area shown in black. Basically I want the golfer in the same position with just more grass below him in the image. I could try the clone tool, but I wouldn't expect a good result.

I am working with a file in much higher resolution and it doesn't have to be pinpoint accurate as I'll be placing text over the part that's extended--but still I'd like it to look relatively decent.

Any suggestions on a good way to accomplish this?

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/3152/golferedit.jpg

[dogtrombone]

Just cloning the grass won't really work that well. The trick is also to take perspective into consideration (in terms of the way the blades of grass would appear larger the closer they get to you).

I would try the following:
1. Use the rectangular marquee tool and select the entire width of the section of grass directly below his shoes (down to where you start the black).
2. Float that section of grass onto a new layer, and move it down so the top bit just overlaps the original grass.
3. To assist with the sense of perspective, use the transform tool to enlarge the floating layer of grass, probably about 10 or 15% (use you eye). Because there's no real shadow definition to give it away, you could also flip this grass layer horizontally (this will disguise any pattern effect from the grass texture).
4. Use a layer mask and a soft black brush to paint out (vignette) the top hard edge of the grass layer, to give to a better blend.
5. If you still need more foreground grass, then duplicate the grass layer (with the layer mask still giving you the soft edge), and repeat.

That should give you what you're after. You could then use the clone tool selectively to clean up any spots you don't like. You could also then merge the 2 layers of grass into 1 layer, float a new layer of that grass, add some gaussian blur, add a layer mask and use the gradient tool to vignette out the top section of the blurred layer. This would give the depth of field effect of a blurred foreground (at the extreme bottom of the image).

Good luck.

[tomjonesrocks]

Thanks. I got something somewhat passable on this I guess using your advice. Adding a transparent-to-black gradient on top to do some hiding helped as well.

[rcfreas]

tomjonesrocks ~ show us how it came out eh? Would like to see the results.

Ron