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Spot Healing brush settings

Started by Atlantis, October 23, 2008, 05:31:38 AM

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Atlantis

Until now I used the spot healing brush set to normal, proximity match & sample all layers when battling the white dots. But lately I also read about setting it to replace (and there are more options in that menu) which makes me wonder about the differences & advantages of the possible settings.
Are there any ps-technical skilled members that can explain some more about this tool and settings in relation to restorationwork?
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

mschonher

Hi Atlantis,

The healing brush is one of my favorite tool for working on the skin because it blends all the colors together.  I use a setting of 57% hardness and 40% spacing for my healing brush. For the flesh/skin I use it set to normal. When there is a lot of white damage to the skin that you cannot see through in one of the channels, I switch to the "replace" mode and sample from the good areas replacing the white then blend it with the normal setting.   I don't use the other settings for the healing brush but I have tried them. The healing tool does not like areas with too much contrast such as edges so be careful in those areas.  You might try the clone stamp tool for that and speaking of the clone stamp tool, it has pretty much the same settings as the healing brush, however I do use the darken and lighten settings for that one.

Hope this helps a bit..................Mary

Atlantis

I also use the clone stamp for the contrasty area's.
Thanks for your explanation of how you use the healing brush and its settings.
I use the spot healing brush more often as I frequently have problems with artefactlike blobs using the the healing brush, maybe because I have it set to "high" and harsh.
With the spot healing brush I can set it to replace but I cannot find a way to define where I want to sample what to replace. Therefore I don't realy understand the replace part.

It also made me realise that I need to refine my question : I am curious about the difference between normal and replace for the Spot healing brush. I will change the topic title to avoid further confusion.
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

Johnboy

I know what you mean by the artifacts or problems when getting too close to an edge with the healing brush. Schen pointed out some time back about making a selection around the area you are trying to butt up against with the healing brush. It works. I also saw it in the help section of my Photoshop CS. I think it was in the healing brush portion. It does work as it came in handy on the restoration I was doing at the time. Hope this helps.

Johnboy

Ausimax

The healing brush respects selection boundary's when it is in replace mode, but not in normal mode, I usually work as close to the boundary as I can without picking up the next colour and then clone or use "replace" to go to the edge.

When I need to blend the two edges together I use normal mode and a brush size of 1 or 2 pixels and stroke along the boundary line and then work gently back into the lightest colour - like when blending the edge of a face into a dark background.

Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

Johnboy

When I responded yesterday, I didn't have time to do any research. Below is what I found in the Help section of Photoshop CS "Using the Healing Brush tool (Photoshop)." I realize CS2 and CS3 may handle this differently so you may want to see what the Help section says.

QuoteIf there is a strong contrast at the edges of the area you want to heal, make a selection before you use the Healing Brush tool. The selection should be bigger than the area you want to heal but should precisely follow the boundary of contrasting pixels. When you paint with the Healing Brush tool, the selection will prevent colors from bleeding in from the outside.
The quote was at the bottom of the instructions on using the tool and headed by the good old light bulb.

Johnboy

Ausimax

Doesn't seem to work in CS2 this was done with a hard brush, tried on both sides of the selection boundary, its OK if you want to blend the colours, but if not it is better to use 'replace" mode.




Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

Atlantis

But how about replace when using the spothealing brush. How does it know what to replace or where from?
The only way to get better is to figure out what I did wrong.

kiska

Atlantis, it has a mind of it's own. You can't set a source with the spot healing tool.

kiska
Photoshop 2021, MacPro