Transcription

1 Retouching Your Images: Have you ever seen an amazing photo but could never figure out how it was taken? A good photographer can accomplish this. And if not, has tools for correcting many kinds of imperfections, from smoothing pores and wrinkles to removing unsightly power lines. How about the pages of beauty magazines? Wow, those models have no imperfections! Or what about the cherish photos in our wallets of our loved ones all leave the tale tell signs of cracks, rips, tears, and misshapen corners. Majority of the photos that you see, can be fixed with. Although, this topic is taught in the advanced level of, we will touch briefly what retouching can do. For those who are adventurous, you can try all 70 Beauty Retouching Tutorials, check out this website that goes into in-depth detail what the many tools do. Although, the article was written a few years ago for CS3 or CS4, you can still use this for any version including Creative Cloud. There are several options available when retouching your images. Three tools that aide in retouching are the Spot Healing Brush Tool, Healing Brush Tool, and the Patch Tool. The Healing Tools: The Healing tools allow you to fix flaws such as scratches, blemishes, or inconsistencies in your images. Located in the Toolbox, the Healing Brush Tool contains three additional hidden tools: the Spot Healing Brush Tool, the Patch Tool, and the Red Eye Tool. To select any of thee tools, click on J or Shift-J. Spot Healing Brush Tool: Allows you to conceal an undesirable portion of an image by covering the area with a sample that automatically selects from the surrounding area. Healing Brush Tool: Allows you to conceal an undesirable portion of an image, such as a scratch, by covering the area with a sample you select from another part of the image. Patch Tool: Allows you to select an irregularly shaped portion of an image to conceal before selecting the sample that will cover it. Red Eye Tool: Darkens a specific point to hide red eye in an image. 59

2 Using the Spot Healing Brush Tool: The Spot Healing Brush Tool works best on small flaws that require only a few clicks to retouch. With the Spot Healing Brush Tool, you do not need to select a sample first; it will automatically heal the inconsistency using the surrounding pixels to blend the retouched area. The Spot Healing Brush Tool samples the new pixels for the area randomly, so if you do not like your first result, you can undo it and try again until you achieve the results you like. does the work for you! 1. In the toolbox, you will see a band-aid icon. Just click on the Spot Healing Brush tool icon and hold your mouse button down until you see a new menu pop up. From the Toolbox, click the Spot Healing Brush tool or Click J or Shift-J. 2. The Control Panel changes to the Spot Healing Brush Tool options For CS4 and below: simply uses the pixels in the selection to create a texture. For CS4 and below: simply takes the surrounding pixels and blends them together with the underlying stuff. For CS5 and above - Always turn this on Allows to examine the area around the Spot Healing Brush or Selection and automatically fills it with the most relevant pixels for the best, seamless results brush sizes effect modes set a source sampling type sample cloned data mode tablet pressure controls size the higher the value, the edge of the brush is hard; the lower the value, the softer the brush is pen pressure or stylus wheel size the size of your brush the space between the brush marks in a stroke, the lower the percentage, the less space the higher the percentage, the more space A value of 100% indicates a circular brush, a value of 0% indicates a linear brush 0% 100% 60

3 3. After you set your brush and sample options, you are ready to select your sample area and begin spot healing your image 4. On the image, click on top of the blemish you want to retouch. Your brush will turn to black and in a few seconds the blemish will go away 5. Click onother other blemishes with the Spot Healing tool, and it should look like something like this with no blemishes 61

4 Using the Healing Brush Tool: One of the most common retouching mistakes is to completely remove the wrinkles from a person s face, unless you are working for a high end fashion magazine. Wrinkles that appear too dark and noticeable, whether from bad lighting or just lack of sleep, can detract from an otherwise great portrait. The Healing Brush Tool requires that you first select an area of pixels that you want to copy and then decide where to paste them. This tool is useful for retouching larger areas that require more attention to detail and cannot be handled by the Spot Healing Brush Tool. 1. You will find the Healing Brush tool hiding under the Spot Healing Brush tool. Just click on the Spot Healing Brush tool icon and hold your mouse button down until you see a new menu pop up. From the Toolbox, click the Healing Brush tool or Click J or Shift-J. 2. The Healing Brush tool will show a different control panel compared to the other tools. toggle clone sources brush sizes effect modes set a source to repair the area clone sample mode tablet pressure controls size the higher the value, the edge of the brush is hard; the lower the value, the softer the brush is pen pressure or stylus wheel size the size of your brush the space between the brush marks in a stroke, the lower the percentage, the less space the higher the percentage, the more space A value of 100% indicates a circular brush, a value of 0% indicates a linear brush 0% 100% 3. After you set your brush and sample options, you are ready to select your sample area and begin healing your image. before after 62

5 4. To adjust how the healing action will affect the image, select a mode affect how the pixels of a layer will interact with the pixels of the layer(s) below it. 5. To retouch areas with one hand-picked sample, a) In the Source section, select Sampled b) To select the sample that will cover the areas to be retouched, press Alt/Option & click the area to copy. If you forget to press Alt/Option, and just click, an alert may pop open Option-click to define a source point to be used to repair the image. c) To cover a portion of the image with the copied portion, drag or click the mouse. Dragging the brush will begin to repaint the entire original image, beginning with the selected sample point. Sometimes dragging this tool will create unfavorable results 6. To retouch areas with a sample relative to the distance and direction from the source point, a) In the Source section, select Aligned b) Select your sample area. c) Click the area to retouch. Until you define a new sample area, each time you click the Healing Brush tool. If not, the sample area will be drawn from the same distance and direction from the area to be retouched as it was in this first sample. In other words, every new stroke continues the image started by the first stroke. d) Drag or click the brush (Sometimes dragging this tool will create unfavorable results).the sampled area will move with the brush, it will stay parallel with the brush even after you release the mouse. Dragging the brush will begin to repaint the entire original image, beginning with the selected sample point. 63

6 Using the Patch Tool: If you can master the Patch Tool, you will never look at the Cloning (Rubber Stamp) tool the same way. This tool is different from the other healing tools in that you first select the area to retouch and then find the part of the image to replace it. With its ability to blend pixels from the source selection and the destination selection, seamless skin repairs are easy and moving entire elements in a photograph is a snap. Larger areas can be replaced and repaired with a good portion of an image. The Healing Brush Tool acted like a brush where as the Patch tool acts like one of the Lasso Tools. The patch tool will try to correct lighting, shading, and texture. 1. You will find the Patch tool hiding under the Healing Brush tool. Just click on the healing brush tool icon and hold your mouse button down until you see a new menu pop up. From the Toolbox, click the Patch tool or Click J or Shift-J. 2. The Patch tool will show a different control panel compared to the other tools. The tool will appear add to selection intersect with selection new selection subtract from selection Source: Drag the selection to an area where you want the pixels to blend with your original selection. The selected portion acts as the source image, which you can move to the required destinations without affecting the original image. Destination: This option allows you to move the source image to the desired location choosen. Drag the pixels to your chosen destination. before after Transparent: By selecting this option, the background portion will not be affected by patching the source. For this exercise I am going to select Source. 64

7 3. Drag a marquee around the area to be repaired. The marching ants should appear like below Optional: Shift-drag to add to the selection or Alt-drag/Option-drag to subtract from it. Or you can click anywhere on the image except for the inside of the marching ants selection and start again 4. Move the patch tool inside the marching ants selection. 5. Click and hold the mouse. Drag from the inside of the selection to the area to be sampled from. 6. Release the mouse, and imagery from the sampled area will appear within the original selection. Deselect Cmd/Ctrl-D. *Note: You may get unfavourable result with the sampled area the patch tool will try to correct lighting, shading and texture. 65

8 Using the Red Eye Tool: When a camera flash is fired directly into a person s face, we get red-eye. The light can reflect back from the subject s retina, giving a red spot in the centre of the eye. Today, themmajority of the cameras, mobile phones and tablets have a red-eye function that can avoid this. 1. You may need to zoom into the eye, if you are unable to see the red eye. Either select the Magnify tool from the Toolbox and position the mouse over the area containing the red eye, and click until you can easily see the red eye. 2. You will find the Red Eye tool hiding under the Patch tool. Just click on the Patch tool icon and hold your mouse button down until you see a new menu pop up. From the Toolbox, click the Red Eye tool or Click J or Shift-J. 3. The control panel changes to the Red Eye options 4. If you place the Red Eye Tool on the image, the mouse will turn into the red eye icon as seen to the right. 5. The Red Eye Options bar allows you to alter the Pupil Size percent value and the Darken Amount percent value. Pupil Size percentage affects how much of the red eye in the pupil is removed. Darken Amount will adjust the darkness of the pupil The default value for both of these options is 50%. 6. We can leave the Red Eye options to its default values. 7. Position the Red Eye tool over the red eye and click. 8. The red eyes are now adjusted. 66

9 Using the Clone (Rubber) Stamp Tool: Clone (Rubber) stamp tool allows you to duplicate part of an image. The process involves setting a sampling point in the image which will be used as a reference point to create a new cloned area. 1. The Clone tool is below the Healing tools. Just click on the Cloning tool icon. You can hold the mouse button to see other Cloning Tools, but I doubt you will ever use the Pattern Tool. 2. The Control panel will show you the different options of the Clone Stamp Tool toggle brush presets toggle clone sources tablet pressure opacity controls tablet pressure controls size brush sizes effect modes opacity levels flow rate for stroke clone sample mode toggle adjustment layers when cloning 3. In the Options bar, set the tool s tip size and hardness as we did it for the Healing Brush Tool. 4. Point the cursor at the image area you want to paint with. Your tool should appear in your image as an O 5. To start cloning (rubber) stamping, you need to hold down Alt/Option then mouse click where you want to take a sample. 7. Click and draw where you want the cloned image to appear. DO NOT drag this tool, do single clicks Unfavorable results 8. The Aligned gadget in the Options bar (checked by default) forces the source point to follow your mouse, even after you complete a stroke. In other words, every new stroke continues the image started by the first stroke. 9. Deselecting the Aligned option starts the sample point back to its original location every time you release the mouse button. That is, every new stroke restarts cloning your image from the source point. *Note: I tend to change the size and hardness often when working with clone tool. Use whatever works for you. 67