door removal

Above is the finished version of this team photo. Well almost finished. I have another version where i sharpened and burnt (midtones) down the faces and front row a bit. I also did a curve to put a bit of magenta in the shadows and a bit of blue in the midtones. Below you will find the raw file right out of the camera.
As you will notice, the background was a little distracting. I decided to remove the door and banners as well as the exit signs and pipes on the walls.
To do this i just duplicated the background layer and did all my retouching on the background copy. I used the clone stamp to cover over the door with parts of the wall. I went right over the players heads that were close to it so i knew it was all removed. This took a bit of time as it was hard to make the lines on the wall line up. I also used the healing tool to get what i needed. When i had the door and banners and everything else removed i then duplicated the background layer once more. I put my retouched layer in between the background and the second background copy. So now when you look at the image you see the not retouched version. I added a layer mask and paint in black over the door and other things that i removed. This let the retouched layer show through wherever i painted in black.
I flattened the file when i was done and added a vignette to darken the edges a bit. I also used my burn tool set to midtones and about 10% strength to go around the edges a little more. Below is the original photo.