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Introduction to Healing Tools

Lesson 3 from: Cloning, Healing and Removing Distractions in Photoshop

Matt Kloskowski

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Lesson Info

3. Introduction to Healing Tools

Lesson Info

Introduction to Healing Tools

If you go over here to your toolbar, you will see grouped in We have a spot healing brush and the healing brush so we'll start there if you think of the way healing works Healings gonna take whatever you paint off whatever you paint on, Um, and then it's gonna look at this surrounding area. It's gonna try to meld them together. All right, The difference. The biggest difference between the two tools as they do a lot of melding blending, which is good for smooth areas that maybe something like this over here. I've got this little post sticking up. They do a lot of blending and melting. The difference is a spot healing brush. You don't have to sample the healing brush. You have to sample spot healing. Brush, I think, works better with textures and things like that. The healing brush works great on skin wrinkles whatever happens to be, but you have to sample with one. You don't have to sample with another, so we go to the spot healing brush. First and side note is you'll usually see me mak...

e a new layer a blank layer here in the layers panel, Um, and then I will turn on sample all layers. So the reason being is is I can start to work non destructively. Aiken, do my edits on a separate layer. Keep him separated from the original image. I just start to get more comfortable with this stuff. Go ahead and you can ditch that step if you want to. But in the beginning, I think it's always good to work as non destructive as possible, because then you do have a way back. So if I make that blank layer and I turn and I don't turn on, sample all layers and I take this healing or the spot healing brush and I start to paint what's gonna happen? Nothing happens because it's sampling the layer that I've targeted, and there's nothing on that layer. So if you turn on sample all layers, it's gonna look at what's below the brush, no matter what layers on. But it's gonna paint on the layer that I have targeted here. So in this case, we'll zoom in, will try the spot healing brush and just paint. Not that not bad. A little bit of a rock. You'll see this. You'll see me do this over and over again. To which is I don't think it's got to be the first time. Like a lot of a lot of what we're gonna do here is we're gonna use one tool to get us close, and then we'll use another tool to get us all the way there. So get the mindset, get the months it out. That one tool is gonna be the fix offer for a lot of these things. But when I see that happen, a lot of times will just go on. I'll paint over it again, and then it will go away. So if the tool doesn't work the first time tried again. But notice I didn't have to sample photo shops taking care of the work. For me, it's doing everything. You know. It's gone. Um, as we zoom in, if you look and you see you know, you start to get a little bit too close and you start to see part of the rock is gone, then I can go and I can try to paint and see if I can fill in a couple of those gaps to So that's the spot healing brush, the healing brush comes into play in that we have to sample with the healing brush works a little bit different to works. I think a little bit better on skin, um, smoother textures like that. But the difference with the healing brush is you've got to tell it where you wanted to pull from. So if you think about I'm over here at the right bracket key and by the way I'm you'll see me use this all the time. I usually won't even say I'm using it because it's it's almost second nature. Ah, the right and left bracket keys maker brush smaller and larger. So hit the right bracket key and, ah, hold down the option key on the macro, the all key on the PC and now click. It's a sample, and then it even fills in the cursor with what I've sampled from you can you can kind of see it. So let's go over here and I'll paint like so got a little bit funky over here and it even got funkier. So that will sample again sometimes, and I'll go over and I'll paint. And apparently, no matter what I do, I can't get it to look right, which is a great time to switch to the spot healing brush and just say Forget it. So and then if you see any little spots that look like they're kind of repeated patterns, you can go and paint over. So that's the healing brush again. The only big difference in there is the spot healing brush. You don't have to sample the healing brush. You gotta hold down, option or all. You have to sample from something before you start to paint. Yes, ma'am. Do you prefer the legacy algorithm for the healing brush, or are you going for the new one? I don't prefer the legacy algorithm for anything in photo shop. So, um, if you didn't know a lot of schools and photo shop, you will. You'll go in and someone will have a legacy check box or they'll have something hidden in the menu, says Legacy. So the idea of a little bit behind software development you ever noticed you say a big photo shop is I didn't start out that way, you know, There there wasn't features and photo shop on day one, and every editor federation comes out. These new tools come out. And so these new tools air better. But then they never go back and take away the old stuff. So what Adobe does is they'll go in because they can't. People just scream. No, I love the healing brush the way it was, Your ruined it for me. So what they'll do is they'll put legacy in there so they'll change the tool in the input legacy in there. But it's It's just the old way and usually my experience with photo shop, especially with the Clooney and the healing stuff, all that the new technology that they have is amazing. So I'm always gonna turn that option off. Yeah. Um, up the top on the toolbar, there's a type, content aware, create texture and proximity match. I've only ever used the content away area. Do you know what the others do, or are they good times to use the other? So the short answer is I skip him longer. Answer. Is they. Technically they have their purpose. So content aware content aware is any time you can get content aware and photo shop you're working with, like the best, the best newest technology that's out there um, create texture, proximity, match their different ways of doing it. And they're really more for before content aware existed with that tool because it didn't always exist. So, you know, create texture. It'll look a texture a little bit more, and probably the best thing to do is just demo, because I think you'll see for yourself. Um, so I've yet to find an example where it works on, because that's usually what it looks like. Ah, proximity match. Not too bad. So and you could kind of tell by the name. It's looking closest to that. So But again, any time you can use content aware, it's really it's it's such good good technology. Yeah, So when you were using the the healing spot healing brush at the top of that post, why would you use that instead of the clone stamp tool? Are you going to get to that? I don't know. So you know that I would I'm just more kind of work through the tools to show you the different ones that are that are so

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Patch Tool Trick

Ratings and Reviews

Norma Rediker
 

I usually don't leave comments but I really enjoyed this class because it focused on the one subject. Learning photoshop can be overwhelming. The way he walked you through the whole process of all the tools and how they can work together to finished the job was very helpful.

Barbora Lobkowicz
 

Great class. Learnt a lot of useful tips and tricks in a short time. Thank you Matt!

Beatriz Stollnitz
 

Great in depth explanation of the different ways to use cloning and stamping in Photoshop to remove unwanted objects in your photos. As usual, Matt explains the topic clearly and at a great pace.

Student Work

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