Need help removing tricky watermark (the photo is legal)

Question

My husband bought this machinery at a government auction, we want to remove the watermark in order to resell it. I've tried the spot healing brush, content aware fill, and cloning, but it's a bit tricky and doesn't look good. Any suggestions to make this easier? (We can't get the original unmarked photo).

Answer 1

Emily,
Removing the watermark from this is not really very hard. For an image like this, and trust me, there are NO real secrets in Photoshop, so don't worry about someone else illegally removing a watermark somewhere else, what you are going to want to do is to draw selections, either using the Path Tool or more quickly, using the Lasso Tool with the Option key held down to draw straight lines. There is going to be a selection for every skewed rectangle where the watermark crosses. Those selections are going to keep you from cloning  where you don't want (don't use the healing brush here at all) and keep your cloning contained to the specific area. Once you get going, the entire project should take maybe thirty minutes and will look like the mark was never there. This is a simple straightforward retouch and since it's a photo you clearly have permission to use, hack away at it and have some fun while you're at it.