Retouching with the Healing Brush

There are many functions in Photoshop that will do retouching of images.
Here we will use the term with reference to removing unwanted marks and scratches and repairing small damaged areas.

The most basic of the retouching tools is the Clone Stamp, which we have looked at in the How to Start section. There are four new and important tools in this section.
The Healing Brush Tool will repair scratches, dirty marks, wrinkles, spots and blemishes with a far degree of ease. It is like a turbo-charged version of the Clone Stamp tool. A sample is taken and when applied to the damaged area, it is merged in with the surrounding colour, tone and texture.

• Select the Healing Brush Tool (not the Spot Healing Brush) from the toolbox.
  There are some suitable images to practise on in the Samples-Healing folder. Please click HERE to download.

  Open image number 01.jpg or use one of your own images with some dirty marks which need to be cleaned up. It's likely to be a scanned image, although digital images can be dirty if there is some dust on the chip.

• In the Layers palette, drag the Background to the Create a new layer icon at the bottom of the palette. If all the retouching is done on a copy, they can always be discarded for a fresh start. After a bit of practice, this precaution might not be considered necessary.

• Choose a brush size 15 with 100% hardness.
  With the Clone Stamp, a softer brush is better because the user has to create a good blend.
  With the Healing Brush, the sample is analysed and blended with the surrounding texture, lighting and colour.
  A 100% hard brush will give a better result here.

• In the options bar, for Mode, choose Normal.
  

• Set the Source to Sampled.
  

• Enlarge the image to 100% by double-clicking on the Zoom tool.
  
  
  

• Find a white mark that needs cleaning up.
  Hold Alt / Option and click beside the dirty mark, which loads the Brush with a good piece of the image.
  Click the cursor over the dirty mark and the sampled pixels will merge into the image.
  This is the same procedure as with the Clone Stamp tool. The difference is that the edges of our sample will now be blended into the surrounding area, with a matching tone and texture.

• In the options bar, there is a box called Aligned. When unchecked, the sampled pixels can be used each time you paint. This means once a good sample is taken, it can be used for many corrections.
  When the colour or density changes substantially, then a new sample will be required.
  With the Aligned box checked, pixels are sampled continuously, without the current sampling point being lost.

• Choose Normal Mode and leave the Aligned box unchecked.
  
  
  
  
  

• The Healing Brush can be used on lines as well. Take a sample from a good pixel area and drag the cursor over a portion of the line.
  Only when the mouse is released are the sampled pixels merged in.
  When retouching scratches and lines, it's better to use small strokes rather than try and clean up a long line in one go.

Although the Brush seems 'intelligent', care still needs to be taken. A clone from a highlight should not be used in a shadow area and vice versa.
A new sample point is required if the tone and colour change a lot.

The Healing Brush can be a little slower than the Clone Stamp to do its business.

The Healing Brush and Skin

• The Healing Brush is ideal for retouching skin and wrinkles, but if it is overdone, then the face will look pasty.
  Open image number 02.jpg in the Samples-Healing folder.

• In the Layers palette, copy the Background.

Sometimes Replace Mode is better than Normal Mode. It will retain the film grain, noise and texture around the edges of the sample.

This can be particluarly noticeable with skin.
Be prepared to try both on a image to see which is more effective.

• For Mode choose Replace.
  Check Sampled and Aligned.

• A good sample must be selected first, so with Alt / Option, click on a clear part of the face.

• On the top copy layer, retouch some of the lines away completely with the Healing Brush.
  Very nice to have no wrinkles but it is not realistic.

• In the Layers palette, reduce the opacity of the top layer until some of the lines show through from the lower layer.

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