Professional Information Technology-Programming Book part 31 pptx

General Repair Toolkit Certain tools and commands are part of what I like to call Photoshop's "Repair Toolkit." These included the Healing tools, the Clone tool, the History brush, the R

Chapter 8 Repairing the Details

This chapter covers all types of image "repair" and the tools you'll need to restore and retouch images in a variety of situations We'll first cover some basic tools used for all types of repair and then get into specific techniques for image

restoration, glamour, portraiture, architecture, still life, and scenic subjects

NOTE

There are some procedures, such as using a high-key glow effect for a glamour portrait, that may be considered retouching but (from a workflow perspective) are really special effects Those procedures are covered in Chapter 11

Limit Destruction to a Retouching Layer

Retouching, when done on the image itself, is totally destructive of any

area that it affects For that reason, you should do all the retouching on at

least one separate retouching layer You already started one of these in

the "The Magic Action for Layered Workflow" section in Chapter 5 for

spot retouching What you'll be doing here, when the discussed

techniques are necessary, is creating new individual layers for more

specialized techniques and then grouping them so they are easy to find,

move, rearrange, and blend It is also done at this time because you need

retouch at the earliest practical stage First of all, you need to do it for

quick client turnaround and before you or the client decide to do more

"refined" destructive procedures Second, the changes you are most

likely to want to make for purposes of reinterpretation are those that

follow this procedure in the workflow Remember, one of the purposes

of an organized workflow is to ensure minimum time waste when an

image needs to be reinterpreted

8.1 General Repair Toolkit

Certain tools and commands are part of what I like to call Photoshop's "Repair Toolkit." These included the Healing tools, the Clone tool, the History brush, the Replace Color tool and command, and a technique for copying entire selected portions of the image

Quick Switching Between Tools in the Same Menu

Each of the tool sets in the Toolbox has a letter assigned to it To find out

what that letter is, pass the cursor over the tool In the case of the Healing

Tools, the letter is J and for the Clone stamp tool, the letter is S To switch

between tools in the same category, just press the letter repeatedly Also,

in Edit Preferences General make sure you check "Show Tool Tips"

and uncheck "Use Shift Key for Tool Switch."

8.1.1 Healing Tools

Another headline for this section might be "Using Spot Retouching Tools." But I'm calling it Healing Tools because the most efficient tools are found in the sub-menu

of the Healing Brush tools One of these is a brand new tool called the Spot

Healing brush

The first thing you want to do when you're about to use the Healing tools is to create a blank layer immediately above the layer you're about to retouch When you are about to use the Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, or Clone tool, check the Sample All Layers box in the Options bar for those tools Then turn off all the other layers After you've checked Sample All Layers and made a new layer, your retouching strokes will all appear only on that one transparent layer Now you can erase those strokes and make a new one if you make a mistake You also have the option of reducing the effect of your retouching by decreasing the opacity of the healing layer

I placed the above tip in another publication at one time (frankly, I don't remember which one) and got an email saying, "Yes but what if you don't want to change the opacity of all of the retouching evenly?" That's a very good question that has a simple answer: put the Lasso tool in Add mode and select all the spots you do want

to change the opacity of Then press Cmd/Ctrl-X to cut them from the current retouching layer and then Cmd/Ctrl-V to paste the contents of that selection to a new layer Then change the opacity of the new layer

8.1.1.1 Spot Healing brush

The beauty of the Spot Healing brush is that it's a big time-saver Size it to cover the target spot or zit by pressing the [ (left square bracket) to make the brush

smaller or ] (right square bracket) to make the brush larger) keys and click

Photoshop fills the surrounding area with its textureprovided you made the brush size too big How do you know when you've made the brush size too big? Look carefully at the ex-spot and see if it's been filled with the surrounding texture If it hasn't, just undo (Cmd/Ctrl-Z) and switch to the Healing brush tool (see the

"Healing brush" section next) In Figure 8-1, I have intentionally exaggerated the spots and blemishes that you can easily fix by tapping them with the Spot Healing brush That's exactly what I did to the figure on the right

Figure 8-1 On the left, you see skin defects Thanks to the Spot Healing brush, there are none on the right

8.1.1.2 Healing brush

There are some areas that are too big for the Spot Healing brush to handle, or at least to handle very well You could deal with these areas pretty well with the Patch Tool, but it won't sample to another layerat least not until some future

version of Photoshop So thank Heaven for the Healing brush The Healing brush lets you set an anchor point to tell it what texture to use in the patch, then it always blends that texture into any area you paint with the Healing brush

There are two options for how to use the Healing brushSampled and Pattern Most

of the time you'll want to use the Sampled button in the Options Bar Pattern is only useful if you want to replace an area with a pattern The difference between doing that with the Healing brush and the brush is that the Healing brush brings in brightness and colors from the surrounding areas You can get some really

interesting effects with this when you want to replace a cluttered background or texture an object in a still life

8.1.1.3 Patch tool

The Patch tool lets you select relatively large areas of the image that need to be hidden or subdued Simply use the tool to draw a freehand marquee around the area you want blend with the surrounding area and then drag that selection to an area that contains the same texture you want inside the "patched" area (see Figure 8-2)

Figure 8-2 The result of using the Patch tool on matching areasin this case the bags and wrinkles under the eyes

To use the Patch tool as nondestructively as possible:

1 Make a selection around the area that you want to patch that is large enough

to contain the target area for the patch The target area is the place where you want to drag the marquees Once that selection is made, press

Cmd/Ctrl-J to lift it to a new layer Figure 8-3 shows how that area would look to produce the result shown in Figure 8-2

Figure 8-3 An area of the image lifted as a layer so that patching can be done nondestructively

2 Click to activate the Source radio button in the Options Bar Leave all the other options at their default

3 Once you've set your options, make a selection just as you would with the Lasso tool You'll get the same type of marching ants marquee

4 Put the cursor inside the selection and drag it to a portion of the image that has the pattern or texture you want to blend into the area that was originally selected

5 Use the Edit Fade command to lessen the effect of patching The Patch tool is so good at doing its job that it can produce an unrealistic or overly idealized result If you're patching a pair of matching characteristics, I often find it better to click the Add option so that you can patch multiple areas at once Then, when you use the Fade command, both selections are faded to exactly the same degree or with the new layer selected, just reduce its

Opacity (drag the slider to the left) until you see the effect you want

There are times when you may want to see detail inside a patched selection If you have done the patch in its own layer, as suggested above, then it's easy to do Just use the Eraser tool in Brush mode to erase portions of the patch If you just want

the Eraser to "fade" its result into the original, lower its Opacity in the Options Bar

In this example, you could restore one or two of the lines if you thought that made the subject look more realistic (e.g., if you were asked to make a business portrait rather than a glamour portrait)

NOTE

I have used a portrait to show how the Patch tool is used because it's most often used for retouching portraits; in general, portraits get more retouching than

anything else However, you can just as well use it to restore the texture and color

of a section of graffiti painted wall or cracks in the pavement of a roadway

8.1.2 Fencing off Healing

Miraculous as the Healing tools are, they're not perfect If you're healing an area that is too close to a contrasting area, Photoshop will simply give up trying to

figure out what the clone texture should be and will produce anything from a black blob to a vignetted or "ghosted" picture of a nearby area Figure 8-4 shows you such a result

Figure 8-4 The Spot Healing brush tried to incorporate texture information from the area of the photo that you see under the cursor circle in the image at right At the right, after fencing off the area with the Lasso tool, the shades are blended properly, but the Add Noise filter had to be used to match the grain of the rest of the image

When you are in this situation, there are two options One I already suggestedraise the area to be patched and patch from to a new layer Since the patching then takes place on the new layer that has been cut out of the original layer, there are no

neighboring pixels that can confuse the patch tool

The other option, in case you're working on a multipurpose retouching layer and making several patches, is to use the Lasso tool to make a selection that will "fence off" the area within which you plan to patch or heal (see Figure 8-4) Just be aware that this second technique works only with the Spot Healing and Healing brushnot with the Patch tool Imagine that you want to eliminate a hole in a wall next to a door Leave the door outside the selection so that Photoshop doesn't try to consider

it in the texture and color that belong within the patch

Finally, you're less likely to "smudge" your retouching with the wrong neighboring pixels if you make your stroke parallel to any contrasting pixels that border the