I dont know if im using it wrong but i think healing brush takes the skin texture away. Therefore i prefere using patch tool and clone stamp to ge rid of any imperfections. But in tutorials they always use healing brush and then add a fake skin by adding noise... is that to prefere and is it really a good method if youre retouching a close up for a skin ad? What tools are you using when perfecting the skin?
under the edit menu you may choose to "Fade" the effect of either the patch tool or the healing brush tool - this allows you to find a balance of correction and texture preservation - OR sometimes it works better to make a selection and use motion blur, and play with the directionality to create the best look on a selection. You can choose various opacity levels for this edit as well.
Tigeressly
Posts: 26
Norwich, England, United Kingdom
The popular and tried and tested method by many is healing on a split frequency layer. I use that layer for cloning, patching and healing it retains the skin texture.
ZaGa Photography wrote: I dont know if im using it wrong but i think healing brush takes the skin texture away.
Sounds like you might indeed be doing it wrong.
But it's hard to tell without knowing how you use the healing brush
ZaGa Photography wrote: But in tutorials they always use healing brush and then add a fake skin by adding noise...
Might be watching the wrong tutorials.
ZaGa Photography wrote: is that to prefere and is it really a good method if youre retouching a close up for a skin ad?
Healing brush, yes. Adding noise for texture, preferably not.
ZaGa Photography wrote: What tools are you using when perfecting the skin?
- Brush
- Healing brush
Tigeressly wrote: The popular and tried and tested method by many is healing on a split frequency layer. I use that layer for cloning, patching and healing it retains the skin texture.
Might be popular, tried and test, but I hardly ever do a frequency split and I still retain texture. Ever since the frequency splitting introduction, everyone seems to think it's the holy grail of retouching.
I doublechecked, hardness was set to 100% and i couldnt change the brush but it looked like a hard one. I used spot healing brush tool in my example, which means the source has been picked by the program... but i remember having similar results with manual source.
Thanks for the links, Natalia, havent tried that method before so i will definitely check it out. I guess i might have been watching the wrong tuts, will pay more attention to mm instead in the future!
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
ZaGa Photography wrote: I used spot healing brush tool in my example, which means the source has been picked by the program... but i remember having similar results with manual source.
If you got similar results with the healing brush, then the problem isn't the tool, it's your technique.
Might be popular, tried and test, but I hardly ever do a frequency split and I still retain texture. Ever since the frequency splitting introduction, everyone seems to think it's the holy grail of retouching.
What makes me laugh is I still use your action even today for fs lol
Julian Marsalis wrote: What makes me laugh is I still use your action even today for fs lol
When I do use it, I use that action too
I use spot healing all the time
I find the regular healing brush works better since I'm manually selecting where to sample from instead of letting Photoshop choose were to sample from. But to each their own.
I explain in details the difference between all 4 main retouching tools (spot healing, healing brush, clone stamp and patch tools), and show how to use them in direct ways and in ways you probably couldn't imagine to use them.
Skin in my retouched portraits is always flawless and always has texture
Julia Kuzmenko wrote: I explain in details the difference between all 4 main retouching tools (spot healing, healing brush, clone stamp and patch tools), and show how to use them in direct ways and in ways you probably couldn't imagine to use them.
Promising
Julia Kuzmenko wrote: Check out the Portrait Retouching Crash Course that will be held in a couple of days...
off-topic:
I have looked at your website and I am really wondering how you could "teach" all of the techniques stated there in just 2 hours.
I will probably never find out unless I enroll
Enjoyed watching your videos and the videos would've been even better if it wasn't for the destructive workflow and the noise for skin texture.
Someone may have already mentioned this, but you need to fade the effect by going to "Edit," "Fade." You probably never want to leave any filter's effect's at 100%. Subtlety is everything.
Clone stamp tool, when used correctly, is far superior to healing brush because you are moving the pixels that represent the skin's texture and duplicating them.
bmiSTUDIO
Posts: 1,654
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
ZaGa Photography wrote: I dont know if im using it wrong but i think healing brush takes the skin texture away. Therefore i prefere using patch tool and clone stamp to ge rid of any imperfections. But in tutorials they always use healing brush and then add a fake skin by adding noise... is that to prefere and is it really a good method if youre retouching a close up for a skin ad? What tools are you using when perfecting the skin?
I was taught the healing brush does preserve the pixels. Clone tool destroys them. Healing brush is the best quick fix for blemishes, scars, etc. I do portrait retouching, which is a minimal technique. It preserves more of the original skin (and the model's likeness and personality) and only deals with the imperfections, not every pore or total skin replacement like many glamor and beauty images require.
I skimmed the responses and didn't see where anyone has mentioned this. When you use the spot healing brush, Photoshop picks the spot. Theoretically it selects a spot with comparable tone and texture to the one you're healing. Theoretically. When Photoshop screws up, you have the option of selecting your own spot.
I use "mormal" for the mode, "proximity match" for the type, and make sure that "sample all layers" is clicked.
Camerosity wrote: ...
I use "mormal" for the mode, "proximity match" for the type, and make sure that "sample all layers" is clicked.
It really depends on the area you are working on.
Sometimes Proximity Match will yield the best results, sometimes Content Aware will do a better job. Over time, you'll get to recognize when to use which feature.
The same goes for the Sample All Layers setting.
It really depends on your way of using the Healing Tool. If you like to heal on a clean new empty layer, you might like to use Sample All Layers, but if you like to heal on a stamped layer or a duplicate or directly on the original layer, you could just leave the Sample All Layers setting off.
There are time you really DO NOT want to sample from All Layers and sometimes you DO want to sample from all layers
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
Camerosity wrote: When you use the spot healing brush, Photoshop picks the spot. Theoretically it selects a spot with comparable tone and texture to the one you're healing.
According to Adobe: "The Spot Healing Brush automatically samples from around the retouched area." (emphasis added)
Lanenga wrote: It really depends on the area you are working on.
Sometimes Proximity Match will yield the best results, sometimes Contain Aware will do a better job.
Do you have to convert the layer to a Smart Object to use Content Aware?
Camerosity wrote: True, but it still picks the spot. Just because it's around the retouched area doesn't make it the best spot.
I've used the Spot Healing Brush on skin that near eyebrows and had Photoshop pick an area that includes eyebrows.
That's the reason you need to understand what the different tools do and learn to recognized when to use one over the other. They all have their strengths and limitations.
Peano
Posts: 3,832
Washington, District of Columbia, US
Camerosity wrote: True, but it still picks the spot. Just because it's around the retouched area doesn't make it the best spot.
It doesn't pick a "spot." It samples from whatever shape the surrounding area might be. If you spot heal along a serpentine line, the "spot" will be the serpentine area surrounding that line.
I haven't suggested that this is the best sample. I was correcting your inaccurate description of how the tool works. It does not select "a spot with comparable tone and texture to the one you're healing." It samples from whatever happens to surround the area that is being healed.
It doesn't pick a "spot." It samples from whatever shape the surrounding area might be. If you spot heal along a serpentine line, the "spot" will be the serpentine area surrounding that line.
I haven't suggested that this is the best sample. I was correcting your inaccurate description of how the tool works. It does not select "a spot with comparable tone and texture to the one you're healing." It samples from whatever happens to surround the area that is being healed.
You're probably right. I was confusing Adobe Camera Raw with Photoshop. I do 85-90% of my "spot healing" in ACR with the Spot Removal tool.
In ACR, you determine the size of the circle to be healed. When you click, a red circle marks the area where you clicked, and a green circle shows the "spot" that ACR has selected. If you don't like ACR's selection, you can just move the green circle.
For that matter, you can also adjust the position of the red circle, and you can resize either circle (which resizes both).
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