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Loved by photomanipulation specialists and spot-retouchers the world over, the Healing Brush works a little like the brush tool, except that it works by copying image information from a source area onto a destination area, albeit with averaging to make transitions seamless. This allows you to repair scratches on scans old media, hide small facial imperfections in portraits, etc. To use the tool, just choose your cursor size then, holding the ALT key (OPT on the mac), select a nice/clean area of your image as the source. Let go of the ALT key and paint over the area to be corrected. Its simple, yet brilliant!
[edit] Tool Settings & Options
Like all other tools in Photoshop, the Healing Brush is very useful with its default settings, but even more amazing when its many options and settings are brought to bear as well. Whilst the following options may be a little complicated to explain, they work very intuitively in practice.
The brush tool palette
The brush tip forms the crux of the precision of the Healing Brush, and acts in a very similar way to the Brush tool, albeit with a simplified palette. To select a brush, click on the brush thumbnail in the tool options bar. Wide soft-edged brushes should be selected for subtle large-area work, whereas small hard-edged brushes may be more suitable for quicker spot retouches. It takes a bit of experience to select the appropriate brush tip for each job, so until then you should rely on trial and error.
The options in the brush palette are easy to understand. Diameter sets the total size of the brush (i.e. the active area). Hardness sets the sharpness, directly affecting the amount of feathering on the edges of the brush. And Spacing sets how often the tool will place each brush imprint - at 25% (the default) the brush tip will resemble a solid line, but at higher settings you'll start to see the gaps between tip imprints.
If those settings aren't enough, you can also alter the values of the Angle and Roundness boxes to reshape the brush tip. This can also be done by clicking on the dots in the proxy image representing the brush tip. The final options box, Size, adds further functionality by setting the tool to be sensitive to pen pressure in combination with a digital graphics pad. If you don't have one of these devices, this option will do nothing.
Only a few of Photoshop's blending modes are available in combination with this tool. For an explanation of the different blending modes and what they do, please read the article on Blending Modes.
[edit] Source
The source option allows you to change the way that the tool applies its healing. Sampled allows the healing brush work in the usual default way. Pattern makes the tool heal with a pattern. This can be very useful if your manipulations have left behind areas that are too smooth. Think of it as an alternative to using Add Noise to create texture.
[edit] Aligned
With the Aligned option active, the healing brush will select sampled areas parallel to your brush strokes, even if you stop and start from different points. When Aligned is not active, each new stroke will start from the original sampling spot.
[edit] Sample
This setting merely acts to clarify the source data location to Photoshop. As default you'll sample the entire visible document on all layers but, with a few adjustments, this can be altered to the current layer, current layer & one below, etc.
[edit] Hints & Tips
Context Menu
- Right-clicking on your document while using the healing brush will open its brush palette. Shift-Right-Clicking will bring up an enhanced menu with most of the options bar choices.
- If you have messed around with the individual tool options completely and want to restore the default settings, right-click on the tools icon at the far left of the options bar. Two options will present themselves - choose Reset Tool to reset only the current tool, or Reset All Tools to restore default settings to all tools.
- You can paint in straight lines by clicking once on the image where the line should begin, and then SHIFT-clicking where you would like the line to end.
- To fine-tune the opacity of your brush strokes AFTER you have made them, select Edit > Fade Healing Brush from the main menu immediately after using the tool.
- Don't forget that you can change brush diameters on the fly at any time when using the tool by pressing [ on your keyboard to decrease brush size, or ] to increase brush size.
- As with many other Photoshop tools, you can 'ring-fence' the brush tool by making a selection and then using the healing tool within it. This way the tool will only act within the selection outline, even if you drag outside it.