Photoshop & Healing Brush

[AtlanaAnna]

I am trying to learn this software using books and online support. Currently, I'm trying to learn how to use the Healing Brush to fix a tear in a photograph. In my book and other places, the instructions say to select the Healing Brush, make sure that Sample is chosen for the source, while pressing Alt, drag the mouse over the area you want to load on your brush, then click the mouse on the tear to replace it with your brush sample. It's not working. What could be wrong? Thank you.

 

[thekodachromekid]

Choose a brush size and hardness that's appropriate for your photo -- usually, softer brushes work best. Instead of pressing Alt, then dragging over the area you want to clone from, just click the mouse over the area (while pressing Alt), then release both the mouse and the Alt key. You should then be able to just click over the tear, and Photoshop will replace the tear with what it picked up when you Alt-clicked. Also, the healing brush tends to not work well if you're trying to clone from an area that's really close to an area of high contrast/differing color. In that case, you can play with the tolerances until you get what you want. Oh, make sure your blending mode is set to Normal, unless you want somewhat strange results that don't really match the original. Hope this helps.

 

[AtlanaAnna]

I've tried this and it still isn't working. I'm beginning to wonder if there's something wrong with my copy of Photoshop. I'm on the verge of calling Adobe for direct support. Any suggestions?

 

[mscallisto]

Couple of things:

First choose the healing brush

Place the cursor over the area to copy then while holding the alt key down, click once. Release the alt key.

Bring the cursor to the place you want to heal and then with the left cursor held down, move the cursor over the area to see the healing.

NOTE the healing tool copies texture only preserving the lightness. So if you are healing a light area too close to a dark area, the dark area will be "drawn in" also.

To stop adjecent areas from being drawn in, you can either select an area with the lasso tool prior to healing OR click the drop down arrow next to the brush size selection and slide the hardness to 100% to keep the adjecent dark area from being drawn in.

Also you can click edit > fade healing brush then slide from 0 to 100 % to see the healing process fade from 100 to 0 percent. This is great to Heal a wrinkle but preserve just a bit of the wrinkle for character.

Hope this helps

 

[kiddpete]

I much prefer the patch tool to the healing brush.

 

[AtlanaAnna]

Suddenly, my mouse is not becoming a band-aid when I choose the Healing Brush and when I try to right click and hold over the area to be healed, the brush dialog box pops up.

 

[kiddpete]

Why are you right clicking?

 

[AtlanaAnna]

If I interpreted mscalisto's post correctly, I am to right click on the area I want to heal.

 

[mscallisto]

then with the left cursor held down, move the cursor over the area to see the healing.

 

[mscallisto]

Kiddpete

The patch tool is certainly a good tool but it doesn't draw in the surrounding texture like the patch tool.

You have to try them side by side to see the diff.

 

[kiddpete]

mscallisto,

I have done that, and just repeated it. The healing brush acts more like the cloning tool. In my experiment, I could see where it was used. The patch tool does use the surrounding texture, and blends in to it very nicely. You do need to be careful that the area you 'select' from matches what you want to achieve.

 

[AtlanaAnna]

mscallisto,

I'm excited. I held down the left & right mouse buttons and I saw the Healing Brush work for the first time I've ever seen it work. As you suggested, I tried another picture and the Healing Brush worked but when I went back to the original picture, it didn't work again.

 

[mscallisto]

The Right mouse doesn't come into play at all so leave it be for now.

Start from the begining... open a pic and make sure it's not locked (if there is a padlock on the layer window) double click the padlock and hit the enter key to unlock the layer.

Now try the HealBrush (using only the alt key and the left mouse buttons as described above) and let me know what happens.

 

[AtlanaAnna]

Okay. I tried that. The picture was locked and I unlocked it but the Healing Brush still didn't work.

 

[mscallisto]

Click image > mode and verify that your mode is RGB or at least not indexed mode.

OK once again, (I have a lot of patience, and hope U do 2).

Open the pic

Bring the cursor to an area you want to copy from.

Hold the Alt key down and you should see a small circle with cross-hairs inside.

Click your mouse once (left side) to choose.

Move your cursor to the area you want to heal.

Hold your left mouse key down and while holding it down move it over the area you want to heal then release the mouse key when done.

If you have more to heal repeat the last 2 steps.

YOU WILL GET THIS Just keep trying