Photoshop Tutorial # 3: Removing Skin Blemishes With The Spot Healing Brush

Photoshop Tutorial #3: Removing Skin Blemishes With The Spot Healing Brush

In this Photoshop tutorial, we'll look at one of the most amazing and time saving photo retouching tools available, the Spot Healing Brush, the first of three image "healing" tools in Photoshop. The Spot Healing Brush was first introduced in Photoshop CS2 and, like the other two healing tools (the standard Healing Brush and the Patch Tool), it's essentially a texture replacement tool, meaning that it tries to create a seamless repair by replacing damaged or unwanted texture from one area in an image with good texture from another area, without changing the problem area's original color or brightness values. What makes the Spot Healing Brush so amazing and fast is that it does this with almost no effort from us!

Both the standard Healing Brush and the Patch Tool need us to tell them which area of good texture we want to use to replace the bad texture with, but the Spot Healing Brush makes the decision all on its own. In most cases, all we need to do is click on a problem area with the Spot Healing Brush and Photoshop repairs it instantly, almost like magic! It works by choosing new texture from the area surrounding the spot we clicked on, and it usually does a great job as long as we remember that the name of the tool is the Spot Healing Brush, not the Huge Problem Area Healing Brush or the Click And Drag Me All Over The Image And Expect Miracles Healing Brush. The Spot Healing Brush works best on, well, little spots. In this tutorial, we'll see how to use it to quickly and effortlessly remove pimples and other minor skin blemishes, but it's also great at removing things like dust, dirt and mold and repairing small scratches.

Making Fast Even Faster With Keyboard Shortcuts

As we'll see in a moment, the Spot Healing Brush works fast, but a few simple keyboard shortcuts will speed things up even more. To zoom in on the image, hold down Ctrl+spacebarCommand+spacebar (Mac) to temporarily access the Zoom Tool and click on the spot you need to zoom in on. To zoom out, hold down Alt+spacebar (Win) / Option+spacebar (Mac) and click. To scroll around inside the image when you're zoomed in, hold down the spacebar by itself to temporarily switch to the Hand Tool, then click and drag to move the image around. (Win) /

For best results with the Spot Healing Brush, you'll want to use a brush size that's just slightly larger than the area you're trying to fix, which means you'll usually need to change your brush size quite often as you make your way from one problem spot to the next. The fastest way to change your brush size is with the left and right bracket keys on your keyboard. Press the left bracket key ( [ ) to make the brush smaller or the right bracket key ( ] ) to make it larger. Also, since the Spot Healing Brush chooses the new texture on its own, sometimes it makes a mistake. When it does, simply undo the step by pressing Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac), then try again.

For this tutorial, I'll be using the Spot Healing Brush to quickly remove some distracting pimples from the girl's face in the photo below, but the technique is the same no matter what it is you're trying to remove or repair as long as the area is small enough for the Spot Healing Brush to be effective. I'll be using Photoshop CS4 here, but any version from CS2 onward will work:

A teenage girl with typical teenage skin problems.

Let's get started!

Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer

With the photo newly opened in Photoshop, we can see in the Layers palette that we currently have one layer, the Background layer, which is the layer our image is sitting on:

The Background layer contains the original image.

Even though our goal is to make the original photo look better, we still want to protect the original image, so let's add a new blank layer above the Background layer. We'll do all of our spot healing work on this separate layer. Click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:

Add a new layer by clicking on the New Layer icon.

Step 2: Rename The New Layer

Photoshop adds the new blank layer above the Background layer, but by default, it names the layer "Layer 1". That doesn't tell us much about what the layer is being used for, so double-click directly on the layer's name in the Layers palette and rename it spot healing. It's not uncommon when retouching images to end up with lots of layers, and giving each one a descriptive name makes it easier to keep them organized. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the new name:

Rename the new layer "spot healing".

Step 3: Select The Spot Healing Brush

Select the Spot Healing Brush from the Tools palette. You'll find it grouped in with the other healing tools. If one of the other tools is showing in place of the Spot Healing Brush, click on the tool and hold your mouse button down for a second or two until a small fly-out menu appears, then select the Spot Healing Brush from the menu:

The Spot Healing Brush is grouped in with the other healing tools.

Step 4: Select The "Sample All Layers" Option

By default, the Spot Healing Brush works only with the layer that's currently selected in the Layers palette, which will cause us some problems if we try to use it right now since we have a blank layer selected, which means that all we'd be able to do is replace nothing with different nothing. We need to tell Photoshop to look at the image on the Background layer as well. To do that, select the Sample All Layers option in the Options Bar along the top of the screen.

Make sure "Sample All Layers" is selected in the Options Bar.

Step 5: Click On The Problem Spots To Heal Them

With the Spot Healing Brush and the Sample All Layers option selected, all we need to do now is click on problem areas in the image to fix them! I'll zoom in on an area of the girl's face so I can see the problem spots more clearly, then I'll move my brush cursor over one of the pimples and adjust my brush size with the left or right bracket key so it's just slightly larger than the pimple itself:

Use the keyboard shortcut to make the brush cursor a bit larger than the problem spot.

I'll click on the pimple with the Spot Healing Brush, and just like that, it's gone, replaced with good texture from somewhere in the surrounding area:

One click is all it took to remove the pimple.

As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the Spot Healing Brush can make a mistake, so if that happens, just press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo it and try again. Each time you try again, you'll get a different, random result. I'll continue clearing up other pimples in the area by moving my brush over them, adjusting its size with the left or right bracket key, and clicking:

Pimples? What pimples?

For problem areas that don't fit easily into the round shape of the brush cursor, like small scratches or oddly-shaped skin blemishes, simply click and drag over them, again keeping the brush as small as possible. Here, we see a longer, narrow row of pimples just below the corner of the girl's mouth:

Not all problem areas can fit inside the round brush cursor.

To heal this area, I'll click and drag a short stroke over it, starting just below the pimples and moving upward. As you drag, it will look as if you're painting over the area with black. The color is only temporary so you can see the area you've covered:

Dragging with the Spot Healing Brush looks like we're painting with black.

When you release your mouse button, the black color disappears and the area is healed:

For best results, use short brush strokes when you need to click and drag across an area.

The direction you drag in can make a big difference in the results because Photoshop favors the area you started dragging from when it looks for replacement texture. If you can't seem to get the Spot Healing Brush to work no matter how many times you drag over the problem, try dragging from a different direction, and whenever possible, begin dragging from the cleanest area with the largest amount of useable image data.

The Brush Modes
If you're using the Spot Healing Brush to remove acne or other skin problems as I am here, you'll often get even better results by changing the Brush Mode in the Options Bar from Normal (the default setting) to Lighten:

Try the Lighten brush mode when fixing skin problems.

With the brush mode set to Lighten, Photoshop will only replace pixels that are darker than the good texture data. Since pimples and other skin blemishes are usually darker than normal skin tone, only the pimple or blemish itself gets replaced, leaving more of the original image surrounding it intact. If a blemish happens to be lighter than the normal skin tone, use the Darken mode. You can quickly switch between all of the brush modes for the Spot Healing Brush from your keyboard by holding down the Shift key and pressing the + or - keys.

Proximity Match and Create Texture
Directly to the right of the brush mode in the Options Bar are two additional options, Proximity Match and Create Texture. Proximity Match is the default setting and with it selected, Photoshop looks for good image data surrounding the problem area you've clicked on and randomly selects texture from the good area to replace the bad texture with. Sometimes though, there simply isn't enough good image data to use and no matter how many times you try, the Spot Healing Brush fails miserably. When you find yourself in this situation, try selecting the Create Texture option. Photoshop will examine the surrounding area and create its own texture based on what it thinks the good texture should look like.

When there isn't enough good image data for Proximity Match to work, try the Create Texture option.

I'll continue clicking around the image to remove the remaining pimples. Here, once again, is how the photo looked originally:

The original untouched image.

And here's how it looks after quickly retouching it with the Spot Healing Brush:

Who needs skin cream when you've got Photoshop?

Was I able to fix every problem with the Spot Healing Brush? No. It's hard to see in the screenshot, but there's a couple of larger scars on her forehead and chin that would be a better match for the regular Healing Brush. However, with nothing more than a couple of minutes of my time and a few clicks of the mouse, Photoshop's Spot Healing Brush was able to do a fantastic job of removing the girl's acne and leaving smooth, healthy looking skin in its place.

And there we have it!

Good luck to your work ... comments and questions are always welcome -dot.JPEG



To other Tutorials: Tutorial #1 Basic text Wrapping on a picture
Tutorial #2 Reducing wrinkles using Healing brush

Photoshop Tutorial #2: Reducing Wrinkles With The Healing Brush In Photoshop

Photoshop Tutorial #2: Reducing Wrinkles With The Healing Brush In Photoshop

In this tutorial, we'll look at the Healing Brush, by far the best photo retouching tool in all of Photoshop, and how we can use it to easily reduce distracting skin wrinkles in an image. Notice how I said "reduce", not "remove" wrinkles. One of the most common retouching mistakes is to completely remove the wrinkles from a person's face, smoothing the skin out so completely that a person in their 40's, 50's, 60's or later looks like they've barely aged a day since they were a teenager. That may sound flattering, and if you're doing work for a high end fashion magazine, it may well be the result you want. But for those of us who live in reality, wrinkles are a natural sign of aging, life experience and the wisdom that comes with it, not something to be shunned and removed through heavy-handed use of Photoshop. As the saying goes, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Still, wrinkles that appear too dark and noticeable, whether from bad lighting or just lack of sleep, can detract from an otherwise great portrait, so in this tutorial, we'll learn how to reduce their impact through a combination of the Healing Brush and layer opacity. I'll be using Photoshop CS5 here, but any recent version of Photoshop will work.

Here's the image I'll be working with. Overall, I think it's a great photo, but some of the wrinkles on the man's face, especially around his eyes, are too intense and distracting:

Removing the wrinkles on the man's face would be wrong, but reducing them would improve the image.

Step 1: Add A New Blank Layer

Let's begin by adding a new blank layer above our Background layer so we can keep our retouching work and the original image (which is sitting on the Background layer) separate from each other. Hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key and click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel:

Click on the New Layer icon while holding down the Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key.

Normally, Photoshop would go ahead and add a new blank layer when we click on the New Layer icon, but by holding down the Alt / Option key, we tell it instead to pop open the New LayerName dialog box, which lets us quickly name the new layer before adding it. Click inside the input box at the top and name the new layer "wrinkles":

The New Layer dialog box lets us set several options for the layer, but here, all we're interested in is naming it.

Click OK when you're done to exit out of the dialog box, and if we look again at our Layers panel, we see that we now have a new blank layer named "wrinkles" above the Background layer. The layer is highlighted in blue, which means it's selected, so anything we do next will be done to the "wrinkles" layer, not the Background layer below it:

Naming layers helps keep our retouching work organized and manageable.

Step 2: Select The Healing Brush

Grab the Healing Brush from the Tools panel. By default, it's hiding behind the Spot Healing Brush, so click and hold on the Spot Healing Brush until the fly-out menu appears, then select the Healing Brush from the list:

Click and hold on the Spot Healing Brush, then select the Healing Brush from the fly-out menu.

Step 3: Change The Sample Mode To "All Layers" And Uncheck "Aligned"

Much like the Spot Healing Brush, the Healing Brush is basically a texture replacement tool, replacing damaged or unwanted texture from a problem area in the photo with good texture from another area, blending the good texture in with the problem area's original color and brightness values to create a seamless fix. This is what Adobe means by the term "healing". With the Healing Brush, we first select the area we want to sample good texture from by clicking on it, then we paint over the problem area to heal it with the good texture.

By default though, the Healing Brush will only sample texture from the currently selected layer, and since our currently selected layer is blank, we're not going to accomplish much. We need to tell Photoshop to sample texture not only from our selected layer but from the layer below it as well, and we do that using the Sample Mode option in the Options Bar. By default, it's set to Current Layer. Click on the words "Current Layer" and select All Layers from the list:

Change the Sample Mode option from 'Current Layer' to 'All Layers'.

Also, make sure the Aligned option is unchecked. You'll find it directly to the left of the Sample Mode option in the Options Bar. With the Aligned option turned off (unchecked), you'll continue to sample good texture from the same area you clicked on until you click on a different area. This is usually the behavior you want with the Healing Brush. Generally speaking, if you're using the Clone Stamp Tool, you'll want Aligned selected, and with the Healing Brush, you'll want it deselected:

It's usually easier to work with the Healing Brush with the Aligned option unchecked.

Step 4: Click On An Area Of Good Texture To Sample It

As I mentioned, using the Healing Brush is a two-step process. First, we click on an area in the image that contains good texture to sample it, then we paint over the problem area to replace the unwanted texture with the good texture. One important thing to keep in mind when reducing wrinkles is that skin texture appears different in different areas of a person's face. For example, the skin around your eyes has a different texture than the skin on your cheeks or your forehead. So if you want your retouching work to look as realistic as possible, try to sample good texture from an area close to the wrinkle to keep the skin texture consistent.

Also, as a person ages, wrinkles become longer and deeper, so we can often make someone look younger just by shortening the length of the wrinkle. For that reason, always start at the thin, narrow end of the wrinkle, which is the youngest part, and work your way towards its origin.

I'm going to zoom in on one of the man's eyes so I can get a closer view of what I'm doing, and I'll start by removing some of the smaller wrinkles before removing the larger one under his eye. For the moment, we're going to be completely removing the wrinkles, but when we're done, we'll see how to reduce the appearance of our retouching work so things look more natural. To sample an area of good texture, hold down your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, which will temporarily turn the Healing Brush cursor into a small target symbol, and click on the area:

Hold down Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) and click on an area of good texture close to the wrinkle to sample it.

Step 5: Paint Over The Wrinkle To Heal It

Once you've sampled your good texture, release your Alt (Win) / Option (Mac) key, then move the Healing Brush over the youngest end of the wrinkle. For best results, use a brush size just slightly larger than the wrinkle itself. You can quickly adjust the size of the brush from the keyboard. Press the left bracket key ( [ ) to make the brush smaller or the right bracket key ( ] ) to make it larger. Then click on the wrinkle and, with your mouse button still held down, drag the cursor along its shape towards its origin as if you're painting over it.

As you paint along the wrinkle, you'll notice two things. First, a small plus sign ( + ) appears over the good texture and moves along with you as you paint. The area directly under the plus sign is the good texture that's being sampled, making it easy to see exactly where the texture is coming from. Also, Photoshop doesn't actually blend the texture in with the original color and brightness values until after you release your mouse button, so as you're painting, things may not look as expected. Here, it looks more like I'm simply cloning pixels over the wrinkle with the Clone Stamp Tool:

The color and brightness values of the area will look wrong as you're painting. As small plus sign shows the area of good texture being sampled.

When I release my mouse button though, Photoshop blends the new texture in with the original color and brightness of the problem area, and the wrinkle disappears:

Photoshop blends the color and brightness values to create a seamless "heal" when you release your mouse button.

To avoid painting with the exact same texture over and over again and ending up with a wallpaper effect, choose different areas to sample texture from as you make your way from one wrinkle to the next by holding down Alt (Win ) / Option (Mac) and clicking on a different area before painting. Depending on the length of the wrinkle and the amount of good texture available, you may not be able to cover the entire wrinkle with one continuous paint stroke, especially if the person has lots of wrinkles. In those cases, use a series of shorter strokes, always starting from the youngest end of the wrinkle and working towards its origin. If you make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) to undo the brush stroke, then try again.

I'll continue removing more of the smaller wrinkles by painting over them with good texture, changing the size of my brush as needed with the left and right bracket keys:

Completely removing the wrinkles for now, but we'll bring them back later.

Now that I've cleaned up the area around that one large wrinkle that runs under his eye, I'll have an easier time removing it, which I'll do next!

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Reducing Wrinkles With The Healing Brush In Photoshop (cont.)

Photoshop Tutorial #2 Reducing Wrinkles With The Healing Brush In Photoshop

Now that I've cleaned up the area around that one large wrinkle that runs under his eye, I'll have an easier time removing it. I'll remove it in sections rather than trying with one continuous paint stroke. First, I'll sample an area of good texture from nearby, then I'll click at its youngest end and begin painting along the wrinkle, releasing my mouse button just as I get directly under his eye:

Using a series of shorter paint strokes to remove the larger wrinkle.

I'll continue my way along the large wrinkle, sampling texture from a different area and cleaning up any small problem spots as I go:

Continuing with short strokes along the wrinkle.

Finally, after reaching the corner of his eye and touching up some minor problems, the wrinkle is gone:

The large wrinkle has been completely removed.

I'll continue making my way around the image with the Healing Brush to remove the remaining wrinkles, including the similar large wrinkle under his other eye. To speed things up for myself, I'll switch over to my pen tablet (a Wacom Intuos4), which allows me to change the size of the brush dynamically as I paint simply by varying the amount of pressure I apply to the tablet with the pen, a much faster way to work rather than constantly resizing the brush from the keyboard. If you don't have a pressure sensitive pen tablet, you can still get great results using a mouse. The pen just makes things easier.

Here's how the image looks after spending 10-15 minutes or so with the Healing Brush to remove the remaining wrinkles around his eyes, his forehead and around his chin:

With all of his wrinkles removed, he almost looks like a different person, or at least a much younger person.

Step 6: Lower The Opacity Of The Layer

The Healing Brush, along with a little patience on my part, did an amazing job of removing the man's wrinkles, but if I was to show him my results at this point, I'm not sure he'd be as impressed with me as I am. He knows, and everyone who knows him knows, that he has very distinct wrinkles on his face, and those wrinkles add a lot to his personality. You may be surprised at how many people would be insulted to suddenly see them gone, which is why our ultimate goal was not to completely remove the wrinkles, just to reduce their impact.

To ease up on the retouching work and bring the wrinkles back, but to a lesser extent than they were originally, lower the opacity of the "wrinkles" layer. You'll find the Opacity option in the top right corner of the Layers panel. Finding the right opacity setting is simply a matter of experimenting, and the easiest way to do that is to press the letter V on your keyboard, which will instantly select the Move Tool from the Tools panel. With the Move Tool selected, we can change the opacity of the currently selected layer just by pressing numbers on the keyboard. Start by pressing the number 5, which will lower the opacity in the Layers panel to 50%. This is usually a good place to start:

Press "V" to switch to the Move Tool, then easily change the layer opacity by typing a number.

To set the opacity to something like 55%, type "55" quickly. Keep an eye on the image in the document window to judge the results as you try out different opacity settings. Pressing 0 will switch you back to 100%. For my image, I think 60% opacity works out well, but the value you use for your image may be different. Here, once again, is how the image looked originally:


The original image.

And here's my final result after bringing back a less intense version of the wrinkles:



Good luck and thank you for reading this post...
if you got questions comments are welcome - dot.JPEG

Photoshop Tutorial Basics #1 Text wrap on pictures

Tutorial # 1 Basic Text wrapping on a picture

In this Photoshop tutorial, we're going to learn how to create a basic text wrap effect. Let’s begin by opening a picture in Photoshop that you want to see in text format. I used this one:

Desaturate the image (Ctrl+Shift+U), then Add layer mask (Layer>Add Layer Mask>Reveal All). Select all (Ctrl+A), copy selection (Ctcl+C). Then go to Channels (Window>Channels). Select Layer1 mask and make it visible. Then paste (Ctrl+V) and deselect (Ctrl+D).

Go back to Layers (Window>Layers), select Layer Thumbnail and fill everything with white.

Create new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N), fill it with white and bring it to Back (Ctrl+Shift+[). Now select Text tool and highlight the entire canvas area. Then copy text from any source and insert it in the highlighted area. I used the standard filler text (for practice i use this standard text... but you can use any txt you want, but for the meantime use this), “Lorem Ipsum Dolar Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.”

You should come up with something like this:

For a really convincing effect you can simply duplicate the layer with text (Ctrl+J). Also, you can choose the layer with solid white color (without mask) and fill it easily with shades of grey (#e0e0e0). Although this would be cheating, inasmuch as the image is easily painted with its original colos, but at the same time this increases the quality and is not terribly noticeable.

Here’s what I came up with as a result:

Goodluck to your work :) ... see you again to another tutorial
comments and questions are appriciated thanks - dot.JPEG