Patch Tool

Although the Patch tool isn’t new, the addition of the Content-Aware option is relatively new. This is a real game-changer because now we can put the results of Content-Aware technology onto a blank layer and select the pixels to use. This is particularly useful when Content-Aware Fill has problems with things like repeating patterns.

Here’s the result of using Content-Aware Fill on a photo with a pattern that needs to be matched. Not bad, but it took a few tries to get the pattern to match up—and even then part of the fill didn’t really work well (Figures 2.33–2.34).

Figure 2.33 Using Content-Aware Fille to remove the debris at right.

Figure 2.34 The Content-Aware Fill actually made this photo worse.

Instead of using Content-Aware Fill, add a new layer and set the following options for the Patch tool:

• Patch: Content-Aware

• Adaptation: Medium and Sample All Layers

Then select the area you need to fix and drag that selection to the area you want to use as a patch—paying attention to matching up the pattern (Figure 2.35).

Figure 2.35 Using the Patch tool on a new layer.

Before doing anything else, check the accuracy of the patch edges. If you want to see different results, change the Adaptation menu setting. The Patch tool is one of the only Photoshop tools that lets you see changes to settings in the Options bar after using the tool. Here’s the result after a few minutes of using the Patch tool—with the results on a separate layer that could easily be edited (Figure 2.36).

Figure 2.36 After some experimentation, the debris is gone and the background looks natural.