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Heal using ‘All Layers’ When the Current & Below or All Layers option is selected in the healing brush tool options you can carry out all the healing brush work on a separate layer.. The

2 I went to the Filter menu and chose Noise ➯ Dust & Scratches I checked the Filter dialog preview and adjusted the Amount and Threshold settings until I could verify that most of the dust marks would be removed I clicked OK to apply the fi lter

to the image.

3 I then went to the History palette and clicked on the previous unfi ltered image history state, but set the history brush source to paint from the fi ltered version I selected the history brush and changed the history brush blending mode in the tool Options bar to Lighten As I painted over the dark spots, the history brush would lighten only those pixels that were darker than the sampled history state All other pixels remained unchanged I continued using the history brush in this way

To remove the light spots, I changed the tool blending mode to Darken and painted with the history brush as before, to remove the light blemish marks.

Before After

Healing brush settings

The default mode for the healing brush has

the Aligned box unchecked This makes

sense, because when you are using the

healing brush to retouch texture from one

area to another, you ideally want to sample

from the same source point

Heal using ‘All Layers’

When the Current & Below or All Layers

option is selected in the healing brush tool

options you can carry out all the healing

brush work on a separate layer

Healing brush

The healing brush is used in the same way as the clone stamp tool, although it is important to stress that the healing brush is more than just a super clone stamp and it has its own unique characteristics So although it is similar

to the clone stamp, you will need to take these differences into account and adapt the way you work with it To begin with, you establish a sample point by OA-clicking

on the portion of the image you wish to sample from

Release the OA key and move the cursor over to the point where you want to clone to and click or drag with the mouse to carry out the healing brush retouching

The healing brush performs its magic by sampling the texture from the source point and blending the sampled texture with the color and luminosity of the pixels that surround the destination point For the healing brush to work it reads the pixels within a feathered radius that is up

to 10% outside the perimeter of the healing brush cursor area By reading the pixels that are outside the brush cursor area, the healing brush is able (in most cases) to calculate

a smooth transition of color and luminosity within the area that is being painted It is for these reasons that there is no need to use a soft edged brush, since you will always get more controlled results through using a hard edged brush

Once you understand the fundamental principles behind the workings of the healing brush, you will come to understand why it is that the healing brush will sometimes fail to work as expected You see, if the healing brush is applied too close to an edge where there is a sudden shift

in tonal lightness then the healing brush will attempt to create a blend with what is immediately outside the healing brush area So when you retouch with the healing brush you need to be mindful of this phenomenon, but there are things you can do to address this For example, you can create a selection that defi nes the area you are about to start the retouching on and constrain the healing brush work to inside the selection area

1 The healing brush retouching can be carried out on the Background layer, on a copied Background layer or an empty new layer In this example, I selected the healing brush from the Tools palette and edited the brush style to create a hard edged brush The brush blending mode should be Normal, the Source radio button checked and ideally the Aligned box left unchecked.

2 To use the healing brush, O A -click to defi ne the source point, which in this example was a clean area of skin texture You are now ready to retouch with the healing brush In the example shown here, I simply clicked on the blemishes to remove them with the healing brush If you are using a pressure sensitive tablet as an input device, then the default brush dynamics will be size sensitive

You can use light pressure to paint with a small brush, and use heavier pressure to get a full-sized brush.

3 I continued using the healing brush to complete the skin tone retouching In this example I sampled one pixel source point for the chest and neck areas and another to retouch the face.

Client: Thomas McMillan.

Model: Sophie Boeson @ Models One.

Better healing edges

Since the healing brush is blending around the outside edge, you can improve the healing effect by increasing the outer circumference The following technique came via Russell Brown, who informs me that he was shown how to

do this by an attendee at one of his seminars

If you change the healing brush to an elliptical shape, you will tend to produce a more broken-up edge to your healing work and this will sometimes produce an improved healing blend There are two explanations I have for why this works Firstly, a narrow elliptical brush will inevitably produce a longer perimeter to the painting edge This means that more pixels are likely to be sampled when calculating the blend The second thing you will notice

is that when the healing brush is more elliptical, there is

a randomness to the angle of the brush Try changing the shape of the brush the way I describe As you start using an elliptical-shaped brush, you will see what I mean

Figure 7.4 To adjust the shape and hardness of the healing brush, select the healing brush tool and mouse down on the brush options in the tool Options bar Set the hardness to 100% and drag the elliptical handles to make the brush shape more elliptical Notice also that if you are using a Wacom tablet or other pressure sensitive input device, the brush size is linked by default to the pen pressure.

1 The healing brush is the perfect retouching tool to use when you are faced with the challenge of having to retouch blemishes against

a backdrop such as the one shown here, especially where the backdrop contains gentle transitions of tone It used to be extremely diffi cult to retouch backdrops in shots like this when all you had was the clone stamp tool.

2 A potential problem arises when you wish to retouch a blemish that is adjacent to a sudden shift in lightness or color.

3 In this picture you can see that even if you use the healing brush with a small hard edged brush, the brush may pick up the darker tones of the model’s dress and you will get to see the ugly-looking shading shown here.

4 The answer to the problem is to make a preselection of the area you wish to heal (with maybe some minimal feathering) and thereby restrict the extent to which the healing brush tool analyzes the surrounding pixels.

Client: Anita Cox Model: Steph at IMG.

Spot healing brush

The spot healing brush was added in Photoshop CS2 and

is a healing tool that was originally found in Photoshop Elements 3.0 The spot healing brush may not be quite as versatile as the healing brush, but in many ways is a lot easier to use All you have to do is select the spot healing brush and click on the marks or blemishes you wish to remove and the spot healing brush will automatically sample the replacement pixel data from around the area you are trying to heal

The spot healing tool has two basic modes of operation The Proximity Match mode is analyzing the data, around the area where you are painting, to identify the best area to sample the pixel information from It then uses the pixel data that has been sampled in this way to replace the defective pixels beneath where you are painting

You can use the spot healing brush to click away and zap small blemishes, but when you are repairing larger areas in

a picture you will usually obtain better results if the brush size used is smaller than the defective area And because the brush is intelligently looking around for the good pixel data to sample from, it is best to apply brush strokes that drag inwards from the side where the best source data exists (see Figure 7.5)

The Create Texture mode works in a slightly different fashion The spot healing tool will read in the data surrounding the area you are attempting to repair As you

do this it will generate a texture pattern from the sampled data So the main difference is that Proximity Match is repairing and blending with actual pixels, while Create Texture is repairing and blending using a texture pattern that has been generated on-the-fl y

Default healing tool

The spot healing brush is the default

healing tool in Photoshop, so the fi rst time

you select it and try to use the OA

keys to establish a source point to sample

from, you will be shown a warning dialog

explaining there is no need to create a

sample source with this tool It will offer

you the option to switch to using the

normal healing brush instead

Figure 7.5 In Proximity Match mode, the spot

healing brush works by searching automatically

to fi nd the best pixels to sample from to carry out

a repair It is a good idea when using this tool to

retouch larger areas, and for the brush direction

to be coming from the side that contains the most

suitable texture to make the sample This will give

the spot healing brush a better clue as to where to

sample from.

Figure 7.6 The spot healing brush Options palette.

Clone and healing sample options

The sample options in Photoshop CS3 allow you to choose how the pixels are sampled whenever you use the clone stamp or healing brushes The Current Layer option will sample the contents of the current layer only, ignoring all other layers The Current & Below option (see Figure 7.7) will sample the current layer and all layers below, ignoring all the layers above it The All option will sample all visible layers in the layer stack, including those that are above the current layer But if the Ignore adjustment layers button (circled) is turned on, Photoshop will ignore the effect adjustment layers are having on the image

Figure 7.7 The sample options will allow you to carry out all your clone stamp and healing brush work to an empty new layer The advantage of this is that you can keep all your retouching work separate and leave the original Background layer untouched In this example, the All Layers option allowed me to sample from layers above and below Because the Ignore Adjustment Layers option was checked

Photoshop ignored the effect any adjustment layers would have on the sampled pixels

Hair: James Bacon for Andrew Collinge Hairdressing Finalist ‘North West’ British Hairdressing Awards 2006.

Model: Grethe @ FM.

Clone Source palette

The Clone Source palette is useful for photographic retouching mainly because it allows you to see a preview of the alignment of the pixels that you are about to paint with

All the other features, such as the multiple sample points, are really of more use for people working in video editing, where it is desirable to store multiple clone sources when you want to clone in exact registration from one frame to another across several images in a sequence

1 Here is a photograph in which there is a litter

bin that I wish to remove But the tricky thing

here is that the bin is just in front of a circular

alcove, and this would normally make it less

easy to remove But not so if you use the new

Clone Source palette controls.

2 To start with, I wanted to remove the bottom

of the bin This could be done normally by

placing the source point for the clone stamp on

the edge of the black line and estimating where

to click with the clone stamp so that you can

continue painting along the line ‘in register’

By using the Clone Source palette, I can now

switch on the Show Overlay option and adjust

the opacity, so that with the Auto Hide option

turned on as well, when I release the mouse,

I get to see a ghost image preview of how the

pixels will be painted at the destination point

This takes away all the guesswork and makes

it much easier to paint with the clone stamp in

perfect alignment with the underlying image.

Overlay blend modes

You can adjust the opacity of the Clone

Source overlay and change the blend mode

as well In some instances you may fi nd

it useful to work with the Difference blend

mode at 100% The Difference blend mode

will show a solid black preview when

identical pixels are in register

3 I now switched tools and selected the healing brush And this time I went to the Clone Source palette and set the clone source angle to be 180º relative to the destination This meant that when I sampled using the pixels from the top right corner of the curve, the preview showed a 180º rotated preview of where the pixels would

be painted at the destination point Again, the overlay was very important because I could use it to precisely align the preview with the image below, so that the edge of the circle was precisely aligned.

4 Here is a screen shot showing the healing brush in action Because I had the Auto Hide option checked still, the overlay was temporarily hidden as I painted.

5 And here is the fi nal result, in which I only had to carry out some minor extra retouching

in order to tidy up the remaining parts of the picture.

1 The patch tool works in a way that is similar

to the healing brush Using the picture opposite,

I can show you how the patch tool can be used

in Source mode to cover up the metal staples

that are holding the large pot together When you

select the patch tool you can use it just like the

lasso tool to loosely defi ne a selection area For

example, you can use the O A modifi er

key to temporarily switch from free form lasso to

polygonal lasso selection drawing mode Or you

can use any other preferred selection method (it

really doesn’t matter at this stage) as you prepare

the image for patching.

Source and Destination modes

In Destination mode you can drag the

selection area with the patch tool to a

new destination point and Photoshop

will perform a healing blend calculation

to merge the sampled patch area with the

underlying pixels in the new area of the

image In Source mode you can drag the

selection area with the patch tool to a new

destination point to select the pixels that

will replace those in the original source

selection area The Use Pattern button in

the Options bar for the patch tool will let

you fi ll a selected area with a preset pattern

using a healing type blend

Patch tool

The patch tool uses the same complex algorithm as the healing brush to carry out its blend calculations, but the patch tool uses selection-defi ned areas instead of a brush

When the patch tool is selected, it initially operates in a lasso selection mode that can be used to defi ne the area to patch from or patch to For example, you can hold down the OA key to temporarily convert the tool to become

a polygonal lasso tool with which to draw straight line selection edges You don’t actually need the patch tool to defi ne the selection; any selection tool or selection method can be used to prepare a patch selection Once you have made a selection, select the patch tool to proceed to the next stage As with the healing brushes, the patch tool has

to work with either the Background layer or a copied pixel layer One of the nice features of the patch tool is the way that the selection area in Source and Destination mode will preview the image as you drag to defi ne the patch selection

2 Having defi ned the selection for the area I wanted to patch, I made sure that the patch tool was selected in the Tools palette and dragged inside the selection to relocate it on an area of texture on the pot that I wished to sample from.

3 As I released the mouse, Photoshop began to calculate a healing blend, analyzing the pixels from the source area I had just defi ned and used these to merge seamlessly with the pixels in the original selection area.

4 If the patch/healing process has been successful, you should see an almost completely smooth join The pixels that you select to be sampled from in the patch process will adjust their luminosity and color to blend with the pixels in the original defi ned area, to match the lighting and shade, etc However, you won’t always get a 100% perfectly convincing result In the example used here, I made a couple of attempts at patching the staples before fi nding a patch selection that worked well

Furthermore, you have to beware of any repeating patterns giving away the fact that the image has been cloned I fi nished retouching this photograph by applying a few healing brush strokes to remove those tell-tale signs.

1 The patch tool uses the same blending calculations as the healing brush to perform its blend calculations In this image I wanted to demonstrate how you can use the patch tool in Destination mode to make a duplicate of this fi shing boat.

2 I used the patch tool to defi ne a rough selection outline of the boat In use, the patch tool is just like the lasso tool; you can use the O A modifi er key to draw straight line points If you prefer you can use any other selection tool such as the magic wand or convert a pen path into a selection.

4 I then hit E to OK the transformation After that I moused down with the patch tool inside the selection area and moved the selection very slightly If you follow these steps precisely and release the copied selection, the patch tool will calculate how to merge the dropped selection with the underlying pixels This will produce a smooth-looking blend with the surrounding sky and sea area The patch tool works well with a subject such as this, because the sea and sky provide a

3 I made sure that Destination was selected in the Options bar When the selection was complete, I used COt LAt , which copied the pixel selection and added the free transform bounding box to the selected pixels I then dragged the transform to a new location In this example I dragged the transform across

to the right, aligned the center point to the horizon and held down the SO

SA keys to scale the transform down in size to make the second boat smaller and appear to be further away in the distance.

1 Let us consider how we would go about covering up all the exposed bricks in the picture opposite, so as to match the remaining plaster work Some of these areas are too large to use the patch tool in one operation Notice how I prepared three paths, to defi ne some of the areas to be repaired, that closely followed the outline of the cactus leaves These will be used in the following steps To begin with though, I converted Path 2 into

a selection by dragging the Path 2 palette icon down to the Make Selection button in the Paths palette.

Healing brush modes

The healing brush offers a choice of

blending modes The Replace mode is

identical to the clone stamp tool, except

it allows you to merge fi lm grain more

reliably and smoothly around the edges

of your brush strokes The other healing

brush blending modes can produce

different results, but in my opinion they

won’t actually improve upon the ability of

the healing brush in Normal mode, since

the healing brush is already utilizing a

special form of image blending to perform

its magic

Healing brush strategies

You can also use a Pattern preset as the source for the healing brush or patch tool by choosing a preloaded preset

or creating one of your own The Filter ➯ Pattern Maker

is ideal for this purpose as you can sample from just a small area of useful texture in an image and use the Pattern Maker to create a randomly generated pattern source that can be used to apply a smoothly blended texture over a larger area of the picture using the healing brush The following example illustrates how you can use the healing brush and patch tool to solve a rather more complex retouching problem Although the healing brush and patch tool are natural candidates to use here, I needed to plan carefully how they would be used, as I also needed to rely

on the clone stamp tool to do some of the preparation work,

in particular where the edges of the selection to be healed extend to the edge of the document bounds

2 I then used this selection to copy the pixels to make a new layer

Choose: Layer ➯ New ➯ Layer via Copy ( Cj Lj ) I clicked on the Lock Transparency box in the Layers palette and selected the clone stamp, and was then able to clone some of the pixels in the image to provide a wall textured border edge on the left and the right I did this in order to provide the healing brush

or patch tool some edge pixels to work with If you don’t do this, Photoshop will try to create a patch blend that merges with the cactus leaf colors.

3I could have tried selecting the healing brush and attempted to sample some of the plaster texture to fi ll in the remaining gap

In this and the other sections I wanted to repair, the area to be covered up was so large that I decided to create a new pattern based on a small selection of the image I made the Background layer active and chose Pattern Maker from the Filter menu I then marquee selected a small area as shown here.

4 I made the tile area fairly large (600 pixels square in this example) and I set the Smoothness setting to 3 If I clicked on the Generate button at the top of the dialog, the Pattern Maker would generate a randomized pattern that is a wraparound texture, the result of which is previewed in the dialog I didn’t need to click

OK as this would apply the texture as a fi ll to the current image

Instead I clicked on the Save Preset Pattern button at the bottom

of the dialog Once I had named the new pattern, it would become appended to the other Pattern presets and it was then safe for me

to click the Cancel button to return to the main image.

5 I then activated Layer 1 again, selected the patch tool and drew

a rough selection of the plaster wall area I had just prepared as shown in this close-up image.

6 I selected this new custom pattern in the patch tool options, then clicked the Use Pattern button As you can see, Photoshop was able to calculate a perfectly smooth blend, and this was achieved using a texture pattern that had been synthesized in Photoshop.

7I repeated these steps on the other parts of the photograph

so that eventually I ended up with the fi nished result shown here.

Retouching portraits

The eyes are always the center of attention in a portrait

If the eyes are sharp then the rest of the photograph will appear to be in focus, even if you have a shallow depth of

fi eld and the eyes are the only thing that are sharp!

So what do you do if the eyes don’t look sharp? I sometimes like to use the PhotoKit Sharpener plug-in (a demo is available on the DVD) to apply a gentle capture sharpen to the image at the beginning of a retouching session And if that is not enough, I will then also add a creative sharpener (with the same plug-in) This is returned

in the form of a masked layer If you don’t wish to use the Sharpener plug-in, the other alternative is to copy the Background layer to make a new layer, apply a heavier than normal sharpen and add a layer mask using OA

and clicking on the Make layer mask to hide the layer contents Then paint with a white brush on the layer mask

to selectively reveal the extra-sharpened layer In some cases you can resort to using even more extreme measures

to enhance the sharpness You can actually draw the sharpening edges yourself This is described in the step-by-step tutorial on the page opposite

Adding lightness and contrast to the eyes

If you lighten the eyes too much they will look unnatural

Worse still, if you overdo the lightening and make them too white, the whites of the eyes will appear without any detail on the page and print as paper white I use a fairly simple method for lightening the eyes which is based on making a feathered selection of the whole eye area and apply a Curves adjustment to the eyes Now you could just select the whites of the eyes and lighten these areas on their own That works too, but I fi nd that by applying a Curves adjustment to the whole eye, I can anchor some points in the curve to make the iris go darker or lighter Or, I can add more contrast in the shadows to make the pupils darker

This is just as effective as selecting the whites only but you have simultaneous control over the lightness of the iris and pupils

1 To add contrast to the eyes, select the lasso

tool and draw a selection around the outline of

the eyes (hold down S to add to a selection)

To feather the selection choose Select ➯ Feather

and enter a radius of 2 pixels.

2 Apply either a Curves adjustment or add a

Curves adjustment layer and draw a lightening

curve to add lightness to the eyes but keep the

tone in the dark areas of the pupils the same.

1 You can sharpen the eyes manually by adding a neutral Overlay blend layer In this example, I held down the O A key as I clicked the New Layer button in the Layers palette This applied

a new layer via the New Layer dialog box I chose Overlay as the blend mode and then checked the box that says Fill with Overlay- neutral color (50% gray).

2 To sharpen the eyes, I made sure the neutral gray layer was the one that was active I selected the paintbrush tool and changed the brush blend mode to Overlay and reduced the Opacity to 10% I then used a Wacom pen and tablet to gently apply paint strokes to the neutral gray layer, following around the contours

of the eyes I used black as the foreground color to add emphasis

to the dark outlines such as the edges of the pupils I then exchanged the foreground color to white (which can also be done

by hitting the x key) to add emphasis to the light areas such as the catch light refl ection in the eye.

Alternatively, you could use the dodge and burn tools to add contrast to the features Select the burn tool and set the Range

to Midtones Use the burn tool as before to darken the dark line edges and hold down the O A key to make the burn tool temporarily become a dodge tool and use this to lighten the lighter edges.

3 You won’t normally see the neutral gray layer as shown in the previous illustration (to take the screen shot I turned off the visibility of the Background layer) But what you should see as you paint on this layer is a gradual increase in apparent sharpness to the eyes and other parts of a picture you wish to enhance using this technique.

1 In this close-up view you can see that the

model’s right eye has some burst blood vessels

Fortunately the model is looking straight to

camera and we can easily make a repair by

copying across pixel data from the good eye.

2 I made a selection of the other eye and used

the Cj Lj shortcut to copy as a new

layer and then used Edit ➯ Transform ➯ Flip

Horizontal to match it to the other eye.

3 I O A -clicked the Add Layer Mask button

to add a fi lled layer mask to ‘hide all’ on the

layer I selected the paintbrush and with white as

the foreground color gradually painted back in

the good eye layer to repair the bloodshot area.

Repair work using a copied selection

Another way to repair an image is to copy a selection

of pixels sampled from another part of the picture or a separate image even Back in the mists of time before there were layers in Photoshop, you could duplicate a selection

to make it a temporary layer by OA dragging inside

a selection with the move tool Well, you can still do this

in Photoshop, but overall you will usually fi nd it more practical to copy the selection contents as a new layer

To do this, make a selection and then use Layer ➯ New

➯ Layer via Copy, or use the keyboard shortcut Cj

Lj This will copy the selection contents as a new layer Once you have duplicated the selection contents as a new layer you can use the copied layer to cover up another portion of the image by dragging it across with the move tool and transforming the layer as necessary

In the step-by-step example that is shown here on the left, I wanted to cover up the burst blood vessels in the model’s right eye I made a simple rectangular selection over the good eye, copied the contents to a new layer and transformed the new layer by fl ipping it horizontally The add layer mask step is important Note that when you add a layer mask and fi ll or paint with black, you are not deleting the image data but are merely hiding the layer contents In this example the layer mask allowed me to initially hide all of the copied layer and then selectively paint back in, with white as the foreground color, the bits that I wanted to reveal In the example shown here, I could paint in over the eye to replace the damaged areas only One of the things you have to be careful of when retouching the eyes in this way is to make sure that you preserve the catch light refl ections in the eyes, because if you were to fl ip the catch lights as well, your subject could end up looking cross-eyed!

Removing stray hairs

As a fashion and beauty photographer I usually do all I can

to make sure the hair is looking good at the shooting stage

But there will always be some stray hairs remaining I do like to use the healing brush as much as possible But as

I pointed out earlier, the healing brush is not an ideal tool when painting up against areas where there is a sudden change in tone In most instances, I fi nd it preferable to retouch the hair with the clone stamp tool I use a Wacom pen stylus and a custom setting where the brush size is a round brush with a size of around 10 pixels with opacity and brush size linked to the amount of pressure applied

I have found this to be a useful brush setting for cloning hair strands and painting new strands of hair The brush size can then be modifi ed and made larger or smaller using the square bracket keys on the keyboard Using the clone stamp tool in this way I can clone out cross-hairs, remove intricate strands of hair and paint new strands that match the texture and color of the existing hair

If you are retouching fi ne strands of hair, pay careful attention to where the strands of hair originate, the direction they are fl owing in and where they meet up with

or cross over other strands of hair A clumsy retoucher may simply lop off loose strands without regard to whether this leaves the hair looking natural or not At times, it is like sorting through a mass of electric cable, making sure that you don’t cut the hair off at the root and leave the rest of the hair just fl oating there! When I am asked to tidy up

fl uffy loose hairs, I approach the task in gradual stages, gradually thinning out the hair rather than cutting it all off This is because it would look unnatural to see a soft textured hairstyle suddenly change into a perfectly smooth outline To keep the hair looking real I try to leave some stray hairs in the picture Sometimes I will begin by erasing the loose hairs around the hair outline and actually paint in some loose stray hairs afterwards (using the clone stamp tool confi guration in Figure 7.8) Doing so enables me to obtain a more natural look to the hair

Figure 7.8 When using the clone stamp tool

to retouch hair strands, I use a special preset setting The brush size is around 10 pixels

And the Shape Dynamics and Other Dynamics (Opacity) are linked to the pen pressure of the Wacom pen.

Coloring hair roots

Here is a two-step process that can help correct dark roots in a picture Firstly, make a copy of the Background layer This allows you to fade out or selectively mask the work that is done on this layer Select the paintbrush and choose the Color blend mode Hold down the OA

keys to sample a color from the lighter hair area Now paint over the darker hair roots using the paintbrush in Color mode This painting step applies the correct color

to the roots To make the hair look lighter, change the paintbrush blend mode to Soft Light Sample a light hair color again and paint over the roots once more with the paintbrush tool This should do a good job of coloring the hair without destroying the contrast in the hair texture

To restore contrast, add an empty new layer mask Reset the paintbrush blend mode back to Normal and apply fi ne black paint strokes to the layer mask to hide parts of the new layer

2 I held down the O A key to sample a color from some of the lighter hair area and gently painted over the dark hair areas where the roots were showing most This colorizes the hair I then changed the brush blend mode to Color and painted some more, gently adding more lightness to the hair It sometimes helps to add a layer mask to the Background copy layer and paint thin brush strokes to restore some of the hair shadows and achieve a smoother blend with the rest of the hair.

1 To disguise the hair roots that were showing, I duplicated the

Background layer, selected the brush tool and changed the brush

blending mode to Overlay.

1 The red eye tool is very easy to use and effective at removing red eye from portraits shot with a direct fl ash.

2 The default tool settings should be OK to start with To use the tool just click on the red area of the eye Photoshop will automatically calculate how to remove the red cast and darken the pupils

Red eye correction

Red eye in portraits is caused when the fl ash source is used too close to the lens axis and the pupils of the eye are wide open One way to avoid this happening is to set your camera fl ash to Red eye mode (if available) The camera will usually pop a single or short series of fl ashes just before fi ring the main camera fl ash exposure Failing that, the new red eye tool can be used to correct the picture in Photoshop afterwards

The Pupil Size setting should be adjusted depending

on the pixel dimensions of the image you are working

on And the Darken amount can be adjusted according to the lightness of the red eye in the shot, although you will

fi nd that the default settings tend to work just fi ne in the majority of cases But now in Photoshop CS3 of course, Camera Raw features a really good red eye removal tool (see page 281) that in many ways is more sophisticated than the one described here

Disguise your retouching

The basic rule of retouching should be

to disguise your work so that whatever

corrections are made to a photograph, it is

not immediately apparent that the picture

has been retouched If you are working for

a fashion client they are usually looking

for image perfection Although I may

sometimes employ a lot of Photoshop

wizadry in order to satisfy the client, I feel

it is important to fade out the retouching

and let some of the original blemishes

show through My preference is to retouch

the skin enough to clean up blemishes

and smooth the tonal shading, and do this

without hiding the underlying skin texture

I achieve this by nearly always reducing

the opacity of the layer that contains all the

retouching work

Beauty retouching

I have included in this chapter a mixture of Photoshop retouching techniques that would be useful for photographers and have selected a few specifi c Photoshop retouching tasks that demand a special approach, like how

to retouch areas where there is not enough information

to clone from In the following example, I show how to retouch using the paint brush and where it is important to carefully disguise your retouching

There are many different types of skin and the skin texture varies a lot on different parts of the body If you examine the face, neck, arms, etc., in close-up you will notice that each area has a different skin texture For example, the skin under the eyes will have a coarse goose bump texture The forehead will generally be very smooth (apart from any lines) The cheeks will also be smooth, but slightly pitted with pores And if you are retouching

a female portrait you may notice fi ne downy hair As you move down towards the neck area the texture of the skin changes to become more coarse again It is important to pay close attention and carefully choose your source point for the skin whenever you are cloning or healing a portrait

Brush blending modes

The painting and editing tools can be applied using a variety of blending modes which are identical to those you come across in layers and channel operations You could try experimenting with all the different tool blending mode combinations but I wouldn’t advise you do so, as it

is unlikely you will ever want to use them all I reckon that the following modes are probably the most useful: Screen, Multiply, Lighten, Darken and Color when combined with the paint brush, blur and gradient tools

Painting in Color mode has many uses Artists who use Photoshop to colorize scanned line art drawings will regularly use the Color and other blending modes as they work Painting using the Color blending mode is also ideal for hand coloring a black and white photograph

1 The fi rst thing to retouch here are the eyes, which I nearly always want to lighten to some extent I used the lasso tool to draw around the outline of the eyes This selection does not have to be perfect – a reasonably steady hand is all you need! After that I went to the Select menu and chose Feather and entered a feather radius of 1

or 2 pixels After making the selection and feathering it, I moused down on the Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the Layers palette and selected Curves This will automatically add a Curves adjustment layer with a layer mask based on the selection just made I normally apply a curve that will lighten the whites of the eyes and also increase the contrast between the whites and the iris I also added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to target the Reds and gently reduce the saturation of the red veins in the eyes

I then O A -clicked between this and the Curves adjustment layer in the Layers palette to create a clipping group with the eye lightening adjustment layer When you create a clipping group in the Layers palette, the clipped layer will be displayed indented with a downward pointing arrow (as shown in the Layers palette screen shot right).

2 I next wanted to concentrate on retouching the face This was done by marqueeing the head and making a new layer via copy ( Cj Lj ) This enabled me to modify the pixels on a separate layer, without permanently altering the background layer

Mistakes are easily made and this way I can always revert to the before version and compare the retouched layer with the original version of the image.

3 I do much of my beauty retouching using the brush tool on this copied layer I prefer to use a pressure sensitive stylus and pad such as the Wacom™ Intuos™, because this allows me a much fi ner degree of control than I can get with a normal mouse

Whenever you select a painting type tool you can select from a number of options from the Brushes palette that will enable you to determine what aspects of the brush behavior will be governed by the way you use the pressure sensitive stylus Photoshop will not just be aware of the amount of pressure you apply with the stylus

If you are using the Wacom™ Intuos™, Photoshop is now able

to respond to input information such as the barrel rotation of the stylus, the angle of tilt or the movement of the thumbwheel (if you have one) In the example shown here I have checked the Other Dynamics checkbox and selected Pen Pressure from the Control menu You can lock these brush attribute settings so that they stay

fi xed whenever you change brush presets.

4 I began by painting with the brush tool in Lighten mode When the brush tool is selected, you can sample a fl esh tone color by O A - clicking to sample a color within the image I then brushed lightly over the darker areas of the face such as underneath the eyes, which will lighten the darker areas When using Lighten mode, only the pixels that are darker than the sampled color will be replaced It is also a good idea to always keep resampling new colors as you paint.

5 I continued painting like this in Lighten mode

to smooth other areas of the face Where there were some shiny highlights, I switched to using the brush tool in Darken mode I sampled a new color that was a touch darker than the highlights and painted over these areas to remove the shine

When using Darken mode, only the pixels that are lighter than the sampled color will be replaced

At this stage I will retouch at ‘full volume’ so to speak Some fashion photographers quite prefer the super-retouched effect Others argue that too much retouching will make the model’s skin look more like a plastic doll rather than that of a real woman It is up to you, but I usually prefer to fade the opacity of the retouched layer Try reducing the layer opacity down to somewhere between

45 and 85% Doing so will restore more of the original skin texture and the fi nal retouched result will look a lot more convincing.

Client: Andrew Price Salon.

Model: Lisa Moulson at MOT models.

6 Finally, I introduced a Curves adjustment to increase the contrast

in the Red and Green color channels and decreased the contrast in

the Blue color channel, to add a subtle cross-processing type of

effect to the photograph.

Retouching portraits

Beauty retouching is about enhancing the makeup and the smoothness of the lighting on the face in a fashion/beauty photograph Portrait retouching requires a fairly similar approach to getting rid of the blemishes and enhancing the skin texture of the subject But I fi nd that portrait retouching requires a more subtle approach as you don’t really want to always reduce the lines and wrinkles quite

so much when retouching portrait photographs It is interesting how there has been quite a backlash in recent years, with many celebrities reacting against pictures

Healing brush used to cover up forehead lines

A layer mask used to fade out some of the retouching.

Eyes lightened using a Curves adjustment layer set to Luminosity mode.

Lines knocked back using the dodge tool set to 5% opacity and Shadows mode.

Teeth lightened slightly by making a selection outline of the teeth, copying to a new layer, setting the layer locking to Lock Transparency and painting over the teeth with the paint brush using a light tooth color set to Lighten bend mode.

Figure 7.9 Here is a fairly straightforward retouching exercise, where I mostly used the healing brush to clone areas of skin texture to cover up minor blemishes

The healing brush work was all done to a new layer, so that I could add a layer mask later and fade out some of the retouching by painting on the layer mask with black using a light brush opacity This allowed me to bring back some of the wrinkles in the skin and thereby avoid the complete ‘botox’ look.

where their faces (and bodies) have been retouched out

of all recognition In Figure 7.9 below I have shown an example of a classic portrait where the retouching is more restrained Facial wrinkles can be removed by using the dodge tool set to Midtones or Shadows and applied with

a smallish soft edged brush at low opacity of around 5%

After gently brushing with the dodge tool, you will notice how the lines start to disappear

Original image Retouched image

Figure 7.10To add noise on a separate layer,

O A -click the Add New Layer button in the

Layers palette This will pop a New Layer dialog

Select Overlay as the blending mode and you

will notice that you can now check the Fill with

Overlay-neutral color (50% gray) box below In

this blending mode the layer will have no visible

impact on the underlying layers But if you fi lter

the layer and add noise, you can create a fi lm

grain layer Try adding a layer mask to this layer

to selectively add or remove the noise.

Figure 7.11 Gradient banding is a common problem in Photoshop Banding

can occur whenever you apply a heavy blur fi ltration It can also sometimes appear

on gradient fi lls The Gradient options include a Dither mode and this will help somewhat However, the best way to hide banding is to apply a small amount of noise, using the Noise ➯ Add Noise fi lter The Gaussian option will produce a more irregular distribution of noise The example here shows a noticeably banded gradient with and without the noise being added The Noise fi lter is well worth remembering any time you wish to hide banding or make Photoshop painting work appear to merge better with the grain of a scanned original.

Adding Noise

As well as removing noise you sometimes need to actually add more noise instead When you use Photoshop to retouch a photograph you may at times fi nd yourself painting with what might be called pure pixels If you are cloning pieces from one part of the picture to another then you are probably not going to run into too many problems But if you use the paint brush tool and apply gradients or blurs to parts of a photograph, there can be a mismatch where the smoothness of the pixels painted using Photoshop does not match the inherent texture of the rest

of the image You should therefore consider selectively adding noise whenever you add a gradient or paint with Photoshop Note that Add Noise options are already included in a lot of Photoshop features such as the Brush options, Gradient Fill layers and the Lens Blur fi lter

Figure 7.12 To stroke a path in Photoshop,

create a closed or open path and go to the Paths

fl y-out menu and select the Stroke Path option

Select the tool you wish to stroke with in the Stroke Path dialog Now click OK and the path will be stroked with the selected tool using the currently selected brush setting for the chosen tool.

Blurring along a path

Some Photoshop tools are more suitable for retouching work than others The blur tool is very useful for localized blurring as you can use it to soften edges that appear unnaturally sharp You can use Photoshop paths to apply a stroke using any of the Photoshop tools (see Figure 7.12)

If you are working with selections then a selection can

be converted to a path (use the current selection or load

a selection – go to the Paths palette options and choose Make Work Path) For example, if you want to soften the outline of an image element and have a matching selection saved, convert this to a path, select the blur tool and choose Stroke (Sub) Path from the Paths palette You could use the sharpen tool to sharpen along an edge, but it does have a tendency to produce unpleasant artifacts and I don’t really recommend you to use it If you wish to apply localized sharpening, then I suggest you follow the instructions that were described at the end of Chapter 4

Smudging pixels

The smudge tool is a paint smearing tool and it is important

to recognize the difference between this and the blur tool

While the blur tool is best suited for merging pixels, the smudge tool is more of a painting tool It can be used either for blending in a foreground color or ‘ fi nger painting’ or,

in other words, smearing pixels across an image Smudge strokes created with the smudge tool do tend to look odd on

a photographic image unless you are trying to recreate the effect of Instant Polaroid smearing A better smudge tool is the super putty plug-in which is part of the Pen Tools suite freely distributed by Wacom Some retouchers like to use the smudge tool to refi ne mask channels, working in Quick Mask mode, and the smudge tool set to Finger Painting to drag out mask pixels to follow the outline of hair strands I tend to stick with the brush tool and use this in conjunction with a pressure sensitive graphic tablet device Under the Other Dynamics options you can use a low stylus pressure to produce faint brush strokes And under the Size Dynamics you can set the Size control to be linked to the stylus pressure

Vanishing Point

The Vanishing Point fi lter provides a modal dialog in which you can defi ne the perspective planes in an image and then use the tools available inside the Vanishing Point dialog

to carry out basic retouching work that will match the perspective of the picture You can make a selection within the Vanishing Point preview area and clone the selection contents within one or more predefi ned plane areas

You can paste the contents of a selection and align it in perspective with the target image And you can also apply the clone stamp in Healing or Non-healing modes, or paint with the paintbrush in perspective

1 Before commencing any Vanishing Point work, it is a good idea to create an empty layer fi rst and make it active before choosing Vanishing Point from the Filter menu

The next task is to defi ne the planes of perspective using the create plane tool I clicked to set four points to defi ne the fi rst plane of perspective, using visual clues in the picture as a guide (hold down X to temporarily double the preview magnifi cation)

Once the fi rst four points have been set, a blue grid will appear within the plane

A blue grid means you have described a good perspective plane A red or yellow grid will indicate that this does not meet the criteria of a good grid plane I could then resize the grid by dragging on the side or corner handles The grid size can be adjusted via the control settings at the top, and the individual grid corners can be realigned by using the edit plane tool v I then created a second plane to defi ne the perspective of the left-hand wall, by C L dragging the side handle on the left Original photograph: Jeff Schewe.

Rotate in perspective

If you have a copied selection active in

Vanishing Point you can, if you wish, move

the cursor outside the selection area to

rotate the contents

2 After the two planes of perspective had been defi ned, I dragged with the marquee tool m to defi ne the two windows on the right-hand wall and held down the CO LA key as I dragged from inside the marquee selection, to copy the selection and place it on the left-hand wall As I did this the windows snapped to the predefi ned perspective plane of the second wall Notice that before I commenced copying the selection contents, the Heal option was switched to On (circled).

3 Because the Heal option was switched on, the area surrounding the window frames blended smoothly with the other wall But the perspective of the windows themselves was wrong So before I clicked outside the marquee selection to fl atten the contents, I selected the transform tool t and this changed the control options view at the top of the Vanishing Point dialog so that I could check the Flip option (to fl ip the selection contents from left to right) I then clicked OK to apply the fi lter.

5 I used Cv Lv to paste the selection contents The selection containing the brick wall image could then be dragged across to the perspective plane area, and as I did so the selection contents snapped to the perspective of the wall, leaving the windows visible The selection contents had not been fl attened yet, so I could O A drag the selection to copy it and drag across to fi ll more of the wall area and copy the brick selection around the corner and onto the other wall I could then keep on

O A dragging to make more copies of the brick wall to fi ll both walls.

4 I opened a photograph taken of a brick wall and made a Select ➯ All of the contents ( Ca

La ) Back in the original image, I added a new empty layer, loaded a pre-made selection of the walls that masked the two windows and chose Vanishing Point from the Filter menu again

6 To fi ll the walls with bricks completely I also selected the stamp tool s and used it with Heal set to Off, to clone the bricks in perspective to fi ll in the gaps.

7 You can see that I carried out all the Vanishing Point work on separate layers I faded the Brick layer

to 72% opacity and I added a Shadow layer in Multiply mode at 80% to add some shading.

Vanishing Point planes and measurements

This latest version of Vanishing Point offers two new features that will make this plug-in tool more useful To start with you can now drag off new planes using a custom angle For example, in Figure 7.13 below, the interior has

a sloping wall One can now adjust the planes so as to accurately follow all the angled surfaces of the room So long as you get the initial plane description completely accurate, you should fi nd that the consecutive planes will match the remaining perspective planes in the scene And now when you clone or copy objects in Vanishing Point you will notice that you can paint or paste continuously around the corners of a plane, as shown in Figure 7.15

If you happen to have the extended version of Photoshop CS3, you can make a calibration measurement along a line on one of the planes and from this be able to make further measurements of objects on associated planes

So for example, in Figures 7.14 and 7.15, one could create

a calibration measurement based on the known height of

a room, and from that work out the distances and sizes of some of the objects in the room

Figure 7.13 Vanishing Point in Photoshop CS3 will allow you to describe planes

that are at any combination of angles.

Rendering options

People have long asked for angled guides

in Photoshop With Vanishing Point, you

can now create an empty new layer, launch

Vanishing Point, use the Create Plane tool

to create a perspective plane and go to the

Vanishing Point options menu (circled

below in Figure 7.13) and choose Render

Grids to Photoshop This will draw the

guides shown in the preview on the empty

layer Likewise, you can use the Render

Measurements option to do the same with

the recorded measurements

Figure 7.14 The measurement tool in Vanishing Point can be used to make comparative measurements in

a perspective plane In the example shown here, if I know the height from the fl oor to the ceiling I can draw a measurement line along the vertical axis and enter a unit value that corresponds with the known height of the room Once I have done this, I can use the measurement tool to calculate other measurements relative to the

fi rst measurement.

Figure 7.15 In this last example, I used the same technique described on the previous pages of

making a mask selection of the wall with the windows, opened Vanishing Point and pasted a selection of

a texture pattern Note how you can now place a texture across more than one plane at a time.

Layers, Selections

and Masking

For a lot of people the real fun starts when you

can use Photoshop to swap parts of one photograph with another and make composite photographs using different image elements

This chapter explains the different tools that can be used in montage work I will suggest some strategies for shooting pictures with a view to making a composite image which will also serve as a neat introduction to the use of layers

in Photoshop Later we will be looking at some of the other tools and methods that can be used to isolate picture elements from photographic images But to begin with, let

us focus on some of the basic principles of how to make

a selection and the interrelationship between selections, alpha channels, masks, Quick Mask mode and paths

Chapter 8