How much to fix this image in Photoshop

[davinche]

I have a picture that I took as a favor for a friend of mine who is the leader of a non-profit marching band. We took two sets of pictures, and of course the first set was missing a few members so we took a second set a few hours later. The problem was I had time to setup for the first set so the instruments ended up centered and for a novice like me the pictures came out ok. The second set we had to hurry due to 3 other marching bands waiting for the band to celebrate their 35 anniversary. The instruments were not centered to say the least so I did my best to fix it myself in photoshop but I am not happy with the results. They choose my rough draft edit of the second picture as the one they want to hang up in the practice room due to all the musicians being in it. I am posting the original photo and what I have done before. I can provide the original raw file or the psd file of what I have done so far which has a layer of the original and additional layer with my edits. Additionally I have a picture from the morning that I used to replicate to the best of my ability the pattern in the stonework. I don't need the stonework to be one hundred percent accurate, just not a large void. The final picture will be cropped in more so that the gentleman on the right side is no longer in the picture.

Thanks sambapati87 for taking care of this for me. If you need anything like this done I highly recommend sambapati87

 

[wongulous]

I guess I don't understand what you want. How much more centered do you want the instruments? What do you propose?

At this point I don't really know what you want to "fix," and I am somewhat puzzled as to why the centering of instruments is that important, so I'm not sure to what lengths of modifying the photo you would go in order to achieve this...

 

[davinche]

I guess I don't understand what you want. How much more centered do you want the instruments? What do you propose?

At this point I don't really know what you want to "fix," and I am somewhat puzzled as to why the centering of instruments is that important, so I'm not sure to what lengths of modifying the photo you would go in order to achieve this...

Off centered may have been the wrong word. In the original there are about 4 clarinets and a snare drum that I cut out because I thought it made the picture look better, there were too many instruments on that side. I'm just not happy with my edit of the stonework in the area the instruments occupied after doing so. I don't want to move the rest of the instruments around I just want those clarinets and snare drum edited out and the stonework of the floor to be fixed.

 

[Phrasikleia]

What exactly are you seeking from this thread? Opinions about which image is better?

I like the more balanced look of the edited image (the one without the drum and extra clarinets), but you should be able to do a better job of editing out the unwanted bits. It does look retouched as it is.

 

[davinche]

What exactly are you seeking from this thread? Opinions about which image is better?

I like the more balanced look of the edited image (the one without the drum and extra clarinets), but you should be able to do a better job of editing out the unwanted bits. It does look retouched as it is.

That is what I am looking for someone to do a better job editing out the unwanted bits. And how much they would charge to do it. I had one offer but user hasn't responded to my response to their original email about how they wanted to proceed.

 

[Chandler Adaway]

If you wouldn't have mentioned that you retouched it, I would have never known.

Looks great, really.

Could use some curves adjustment, but other than that, good job.