Hi,

I'd like to spice up my retouching skills with fabrics & textures. This leather jacket here is a bit of a challenge:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zb9rrbjqalna6eo/Leather.jpg

I'm familiar with d&b and frequency separation. Which approach would you take to clean up the creases? (particularly the ones that go down the arm on the left, and the ones below the shoulder to the right).

Thank you for your ideas and help!

I think the best solution is a combination of FS and the patch tool.

Never worked much with the patch tool, though of course I've played around with it a little bit. (CS6)
Patch Tool seems a bit basic, and I can't really see much of an advantage to the normal healing brush, apart from maybe previsualization. Do people use it much?

Also: Is it possible to adjust the softness/hardness of the patch tool? (similar to a normal brush or clone/healing brush tool I mean)
Anyone know of any "tricks" or nice workflows with the patch tool?

a combination of Clone tool at low brush settings, D&B and perhaps some Healing - all on separate layers.

So, I've given this a first try:

1) FS
2) Patch Tool on low frequency
3) Clone Tool on high frequency (ellipse shaped brush at various angles – not sure if necessary, but felt better)

The result was still a bit "blotchy". Possibly because of the FS radius setting I used (5 pixels). So I added an inverted highpass on top of everything (= the third image in the "before & after" animated gif here: )



What do you reckon? Which areas should I improve on? Or should I better try again, maybe with a different FS radius?
I'd appreciate any kind of feedback. I really want to improve my overall "fabric" retouching skills.
(Also wouldn't mind some more images to practice on, if you can recommend some...)

Thanks very much!