Here are a couple I just found again. I included the second shot because I love the monorail position, but another guest walked through, and our old camera took so long between shots, the monorail was long gone after that.
#2 is very easily fixed with a little clone brush, esp. since you have #1 to use as a sample/reference. bet someone here can fix it in about 5 minutes... if you want the original fixed, send me a PM.
your 30 second try is in a far better league than my 15 min try. I may have to try photoshop again. I tried it a year ago, and did not have the patience to learn it.
a few tips... keep the sample size smaller as opposed to larger and use more clicks rather than fewer. now for the rub.... VARY THE SAMPLE LOCATION so you dont get that banded look. take your time and be patient. also once you get about done, go back and vary the sample size (small and large) and go over the main parts to make sure you don't get any banding or patters in the cloned area. your pic literally took me about 30 seconds to fix.
With those two pictures being so near-identical, another fairly easy method you could use would be to copy the photo with the man as a new layer over the other pic, do a quick alignment using the 'difference' blend mode, then erase away the man from the top layer letting the rock from the other layer show through. I did a quickie in 30-40 seconds using your small posted version and it worked like a charm. The two pics are only off by a few mm, so they are very simple to align. Tim's advice is great - I love clone brush, and use it all the time. I usually use a nice small sample size (10-30) depending on the size of the pic, and unless it is a uniform color, I sample a few times from different places in the photo. Also, when cloning stuff with a very busy pattern (sand, leaves, etc) you can reduce the opacity of the clone brush for a second or third pass, to run over seam lines or areas that are two opposing colors, to help them blend better, so the cloned area doesn't stand out.
