Using the healing brush and patch tools

The new healing brush and patch features in Photoshop 7.0 go one step beyond the capabilities of the clone stamp and pattern stamp tools. Using their ability to simultaneously apply and blend pixels from area to area, they open the door to natural-looking touchups in areas that are not uniform in color or texture.

In this project, you’ll touch up the stone wall, removing some graffiti and bullet holes marring its surface. Because the rock has variations in its colors, textures, and lighting, it would be challenging to successfully use the clone stamp tool to touch up the damaged areas. Fortunately, the healing brush and patch tools make this process easy.

If you want to review the “before” and “after” versions of this image, use the File Browser, as described in “Getting started” on page 194.

Using the healing brush to remove flaws

Your first goal for this image is to remove the initials marring the natural beauty of the rock wall.

1.	Choose File > Open, and open the 07B_Start.psd file, or use the File Browser and double-click the thumbnail to open the file.
2.	Select the zoom tool () and click the initials “DJ” that have been scratched into the lower left area of the rock, so that you see that area of the image at about 200%.
3.	In the toolbox, select the healing brush tool ().
4.	In the tool options bar, click the Brush option arrow to open the pop-up palette of controls, and drag the slider or type to enter a Diameter value of 10 px. Then, close the pop-up palette and make sure that the other settings in the tool options bar are set to the default values: Normal in the Mode option, Sampled in the Source option, and the Aligned check box deselected.
5.	Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click a short distance above the scratched-in graffiti in the image to sample that part of the rock. Release the Alt/Option key.
6.	Starting above the graffiti “D,” paint straight down over the top part of the letter, using a short stroke. Notice that as you paint, the area the brush covers temporarily looks as if it isn’t making a good color match with the underlying image. However, when you release the mouse button, the brush stroke blends in nicely with the rest of the rock surface.
7.	Continue using short strokes to paint over the graffiti, starting at the top and moving down until you can no longer detect the graffiti letters. When you finish removing the graffiti, look closely at the surface of the rock, and notice that even the subtle striations in the rock appear to be fully restored and natural in the image.
8.	Zoom out to 100%, and choose File > Save.

About snapshots and History palette states

When you do retouching work, it can be easy to over-edit images until they no longer look realistic. One of the safeguards you can take to save intermediate stages of your work is to take Photoshop snapshots of the image at various points in your progress.

The History palette automatically records the steps you take when you work on a Photoshop file. You can use the History palette states like a multiple Undo command to restore the image to previous stages in your work. For example, to undo the most recent six steps, simply click the sixth step above the current state in the History palette. To return to the latest state, scroll back down the History palette and select the state in the lowest position on the list.

The number of steps saved in the History palette is determined by a Preferences setting. The default specifies that only the 20 most recent steps are recorded. As you perform additional steps, the earliest states are lost as the latest ones are added to the History palette.

When you select an earlier step in the History palette, the image window reverts to the condition it had at that phase. All the subsequent steps are still listed below it in the palette. However, if you select an earlier state in your work and then make a new change, all the states that appeared after the selected state are lost, replaced by the new state.

Snapshots give you an opportunity to try out different techniques and then choose among them. Typically, you might take a snapshot at a stage of the work that you are confident that you want to keep, at least as a base point. Then, you could try out various techniques until you reached a possible completed phase. If you take another snapshot at that phase, it will be saved for the duration of the current work session on that file. Then, you can revert to the first snapshot and try out different techniques and ideas for finishing the image. When that is finalized, you could take a third snapshot, revert to the first snapshot, and try again.

When you finish experimenting, you could scroll to the top of the History palette to where the snapshots are listed. Then, you can select each of the final snapshots in turn and compare the results.

Once you identify the one you like best, you could select it, save your file, and close it. At that time, your snapshots and History palette steps would be permanently lost.

Taking a snapshot

Because you are satisfied with the results of your healing the graffiti marks, now is a good time to take a snapshot. This will serve as a baseline for any future experimentation.

1.	If the History palette is not open, choose Window > History. If necessary, scroll to the bottom of the History palette so that you can see the last change you made to the image, and make sure that you leave that state selected.
2.	Click the New Snapshot button () at the bottom of the History palette to create a snapshot of the current state.
3.	Scroll to the top of the History palette. A new snapshot, Snapshot 1, appears at the top of the palette.
4.	Double-click the words Snapshot 1 and type Post-graffiti to rename the snapshot. Note You can also take snapshots of earlier phases of your current work session. To do this, scroll to that step in the History palette, select it, and click the New Snapshot button at the bottom of the palette. After you rename the snapshot, reselect the step at which you want to continue working.
5.	Make sure that either the Post-graffiti snapshot or the last state in the History list is selected in the History palette. Then choose File > Save.

Using the patch tool

The patch tool combines the selection behavior of the lasso tool with the color-blending properties of the healing brush tool. With the patch tool, you can select an area that you want to use as the source (area to be fixed) or destination (area used to do the fixing). Then you drag the patch tool marquee to another part of the image. When you release the mouse button, the patch tool does its job. The marquee remains active over the mended area, ready to be dragged again, either to another area that needs patching (if the Destination option is selected) or to another sampling site (if the Source option is selected).

1.	In the toolbox, select the patch tool (), hidden under the healing brush tool ().
2.	In the tool options bar, make sure that Source is selected.
3.	Drag the patch tool cursor around a few of the bullet holes to the right of the climber, as if you were using the lasso tool, and then release the mouse.
4.	Now that you’ve defined the area to be patched, drag the selection to an unblemished area of the rock, preferably one that is similar in color to the rock around the bullet holes but this is not absolutely necessary. When you release the mouse, the selection marquee snaps back to its original position over the bullet holes, replacing and blending the bullet-hole pixels with pixels from the unblemished area.
5.	Drag a new patch-tool selection around some of the other bullet holes and then drag to an unblemished area of the image. Continue to patch the image until all the scars are repaired to your satisfaction. (Don’t overlook the holes on the left side of the image.)
6.	Choose Select > Deselect.
7.	Choose File > Save.

Using the history brush tool to selectively reedit

Even with the best tools, retouching photographs so that they look completely natural is an art and requires some practice. Examine your rock-climber image critically to see if any areas of your work with the healing brush or patch tools are now too uniform or smooth so that the area no longer looks realistic. You’ll correct that now with another tool.

The history brush tool is similar to the clone stamp tool. The difference between them is that instead of using a defined area of the image as the source (as the clone stamp tool does), the history brush tool uses a previous state as the source.

The advantage of the history brush tool is that you can restore limited areas of the image. Because of this, you can keep the successful retouching effects you’ve made to some areas of the image and restore other, less successfully retouched areas to their previous state so that you can make a second attempt.

1.	In the toolbox, select the history brush tool ().
2.	Scroll to the top of the History palette and click the empty box next to the Post-graffiti snapshot to set the source state that the history brush tool will use to paint.
3.	Drag the history brush tool over the area where the bullet holes appeared before you edited them to start restoring that part of the image to previous condition. The bullet holes reappear as you paint.
4.	Using the tool options bar, experiment with the different settings for the history brush tool, such as Opacity and Mode. Notice how these affect the appearance of the rock as you paint. If you don’t like the results of an experiment, choose Edit > Undo, or click a previous step at the bottom of the History palette to revert to that state.
5.	Continue working with the history brush and patch tools until you are satisfied with the final appearance of your image.
6.	Choose File > Save. You’ve finished your work on this image.
7.	Choose File > Close to close the file.