Okay, so, this whole thing started because I was messing around with some WWE SmackDown graphics, you know, for fun. I’m a big wrestling fan, always have been. I found this awesome resource online—well, I can’t tell you exactly where, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly the official WWE website – with a bunch of images. I figured I’d try to edit one, just to see what I could do.
I downloaded a few graphics featuring Roman Reigns. Pretty standard stuff: the logo, his picture, some wrestler profile stuff. I used Photoshop. It’s my go-to program for this kind of stuff. I’m pretty comfortable with it, but I always try to remember the basics—layers, masks, selections, all that jazz. You know, the usual workflow.
First, I tried to just…remove Roman Reigns from one image. Simple enough, right? Wrong. It looked awful. The background was a total mess, super pixelated. I tried using the clone stamp tool, but that just made it even worse. It was a real headache. I spent, like, an hour on just one image, and it still looked terrible. I was starting to get frustrated.
Then I remembered a tutorial I saw ages ago, something about using selection tools more effectively, then using content-aware fill. So I went back, and this time I really focused on getting a clean selection around Roman. Used the lasso tool, really zoomed in, refined the edges…it took forever. Then I used the content-aware fill. And guess what? It actually worked! It wasn’t perfect, but it was way better than my first attempt. Still had some minor artifacts, but it was much more manageable.
I ended up doing a bunch of variations. Tried different selection methods—the quick selection tool, the magic wand—and compared the results with the content-aware fill, patching things up where necessary. Some of the images were easier than others. Some had simpler backgrounds, others were a nightmare. The ones with complex lighting were the toughest; you could really see the seams after I filled in the space where Roman used to be.
I think I went through like five or six images before I was somewhat happy with the results. Then I tried removing him from one of the logos. That was a whole different ball game. Vector graphics are a whole different beast; a much more intricate process. I ended up just kinda masking out his section from the logo. It wasn’t really removing him, but it got the job done, hiding his likeness.
In the end, I had a bunch of SmackDown graphics… without Roman Reigns. It was a fun experiment, though time-consuming. It made me realize how much work actually goes into these kinds of graphics. It’s not just slapping an image onto a background; it’s a lot of precision work and cleanup, fixing flaws, making it all seamless. I learned a few new tricks in Photoshop, and I definitely have a better appreciation for the people who create these graphics professionally. It’s a lot harder than it looks!
