A just did a little test of the content aware fill in Photoshop CS5 and compared it to CS4

Photoshop CS5 Preview: Content Aware Fil

I never use spot heal.  It's useless.

I figured the content aware fill would only work in very specific situations, which looked great in the demo at 300x200px videos.

I think that's about what I expected, but it's good to see it in action with something more realistic than the demos.

I don't use spot heal at all, but if you use the healing brush and carefully pick the source you can get some very nice results - things with gradual tone or color variations that can be tricky to match up with the clone tool. My guess is that the content aware fill will be similar - if you're willing to spend a bit of time to work on smaller pieces (i.e. don't just try and replace the whole thing at once) you'll have a good new tool. But it won't be a push-button one-step way to remove a person, sign or other large object from detailed backgrounds. 

Quote from: sjlocke on April 30, 2010, 16:45
I never use spot heal.  It's useless.

I figured the content aware fill would only work in very specific situations, which looked great in the demo at 300x200px videos.

I use the spot healing brush all the time. It's great for quickly removing imperfections in open areas.

Yeah, it needs to be a wide open area.  When I am trying to clean up skin, I find it tries to draw information from too far away, or too dark a place.  Patch works much better because I can pick where I want it to use.

Thanks for the report LEAF . . . you where asking it to perform miracles on that figure, in fact it did better than I expected.  I am sure it is an improvement over the older version.  I do use the spot healing tool all the time to remove those pesty bunnies in the sky.

I always used healing brush instead of spot healing because I prefer to choose a sample manually.
I tried content aware filter in CS5 and surprisingly sometimes it works perfect, and sometimes it works good enough. I tried it on many different cases. I removed 2 huge objects from the image, and then just needed to retouch some minor details. Anyway, it saves A LOT of time.
It works better on busy surfaces comparing to flat surfaces (like sky). With flat surfaces it tends to leave a patch with just slightly different shade where the removed objects was. But that can also be corrected pretty easy.

Removing figures surrounded by backgrounds that have some structures that shouldn't be used by program as a sample for cloning can be done by selecting certain areas of the image. This way you can "tell" the filter what not to take as a sample.

Content Aware Fill is a great tool!! Look at these examples if you don't believe me...

More Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek Awesomeness

Quote from: peresanz on May 03, 2010, 13:29

Content Aware Fill is a great tool!! Look at these examples if you don't believe me...

I heard it can create unique, high selling stock photos - with just one click of the button!

Quote from: peresanz on May 03, 2010, 13:29

Content Aware Fill is a great tool!! Look at these examples if you don't believe me...

More Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek Awesomeness

haha yeah.. great.

Quote from: etienjones on April 30, 2010, 19:02
Thanks for the report LEAF . . . you where asking it to perform miracles on that figure, in fact it did better than I expected.  I am sure it is an improvement over the older version.  I do use the spot healing tool all the time to remove those pesty bunnies in the sky.

yeah I was pushing it a little but it did a pretty good job on the texture of the jeans and even on the door on the top.  When the job is pretty 'easy' or there is a minimum of textures to pick from it does a pretty good job.

Quote from: peresanz on May 03, 2010, 13:29

Content Aware Fill is a great tool!! Look at these examples if you don't believe me...

Adobe really was asking for that!!

Right, I wish I could use Content Aware Fill on my wallet to pay for the upgrade. . . . . .