Retouching Tools in Photoshop CS2

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1 1 of 10 Retouching Tools in Photoshop CS2 By: Jim Babbage It's pretty much an undisputed fact that Photoshop is the king of bitmap editing tools especially for high resolution, print-destined images. Photoshop CS2 has some very cool and useful tools and features that can help you fix or clean-up almost any image that is supplied to you. In this article (Part 1) we will look at several tools some of which you will recognize if you are a veteran Fireworks user and some which you will probably say, "Holy Moly! this is cool!" We've all been there: the client sends you a digital image that he wants on the web site. Great, he's finally sending photos as electronic files! Only one problem...the image was poorly scanned on a dirty platen. The image has scratches and some less than ideal tracks in the snow. Well, at least it's digital. Time to see what Photoshop has in its retouching tools arsenal: The Spot Healing Brush tool removes blemishes and objects. The Healing Brush tool paints with a sample or pattern to repair imperfections in a image. The Patch tool repairs imperfections in a selected area of an image using a sample or pattern. The Red Eye tool* removes the red reflection caused by a flash. The Clone Stamp tool* paints with a sample of an image. The Pattern Stamp tool paints with part of an image as a pattern. The Eraser tool* erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state. The Background Eraser tool erases areas to transparency by dragging. The Magic Eraser tool erases solid-colored areas to transparency with a single click. The Blur tool* blurs hard edges in an image. The Sharpen tool* sharpens soft edges in an image.

2 2 of 10 The Smudge tool* pushes pixel data around in an image. The Dodge tool* lightens areas in an image. The Burn tool* darkens areas in an image. The Sponge tool changes the color saturation of an area. Tools with an asterisk can also be found in Fireworks 8 and behave pretty much the same way. Not every image requires that you use all the tools available. This image is no different. We will use some of these tools to fix the supplied image called segwun.psd conveniently damaged just for you or feel free to use your own samples. Supplied files are available for download at the bottom of the page. The tools we'll focus on are the Spot Healing Brush (new for CS2), the Healing Brush, Clone Stamp, Patch, Dodge and Burn tools. The image I'll use is a shot I took in Gravenhurst, Ontario a few weeks ago, with my Fuji digital camera. This camera is self-contained, in that the lens is not removable, so images are normally dust free. I've taken care of that, however, by adding some of my own dust, and the odd scratch. You can thank me later. Below are before and after shots. Figure 1 - Dust, scratches, snowmobile tracks and (when you're zoomed in close) ugly guy wires abound in this image.

3 3 of 10 Figure 2 - Photoshop's bitmap repair tools clean this image up in a snap! Dodge and Burn tools were also used to adjust the brightness of specific areas, such as lightening the tree line and adding density to some of the bright areas of the Segwun, in the foreground. Heal Thyself... Where to begin... let's start with those hairline scratches in the sky. In both cases, we will use the Healing Brush to correct the problem. The Healing Brush is much like the Clone (Rubber) Stamp tool, with one very noticeable difference. The Healing Brush not only paints pixels, but matches brightness, texture, shading and transparency of those pixels based on the area that is being repaired. This means that you can effectively sample from any area of suitable detail, and not worry about whether that area is the same brightness as the area you are trying to fix. With the Clone Stamp, you needed to make sure the sample area was similar in brightness to get a good stamping. Other than that, the Healing Brush works the same as the Clone Stamp, or Rubber Stamp in Fireworks: To access the tool, press "J" to select the cloning tool set, then either click and hold on the Spot Healing Brush tool icon to bring up the fly out menu, or press Shift+J keys repeatedly until the Healing Brush is activated.

4 4 of 10 Figure 3 - The four tools you can find within the Spot Healing Brush Figure 4 - The Options Bar is much like the Property Inspector in Fireworks. It is context-sensitive and changes based on the tool you have chosen. % Figure 5 - The red cross hair shows where I am sampling from!"!#! $ #! Figure 6 - With the Healing Brush, the real magic happens after you let go of the mouse.

5 5 of 10 One trick to the Healing brush is this: If the healing brush starts or ends near an area of extreme contrast, the blending will not work because of how the brush blends the pixels outside the area of the brush size. If you have a situation like this, draw a selection first that is bigger than the area you want to heal, but lines up exactly against the area(s) of contrasting pixels. The same technique can be applied to both of the scratches in the sky. I also went a bit further and removed the guy-wires that supported the flag poles. In this instance, it's best if you make a selection first before using the Healing Brush, as mentioned in the tip above. Figure 7 - The ugly guy wire Figure 8 - Select the area first so that you exclude pixels of contrasting color, then use the Healing Brush Figure 9 - Seamless repair! See Spots? See the Spot Healing Brush Bucko, it doesn't get much easier than this! As you know, both the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush are two-step tools; you must first sample an area and then paint on the correction. The Spot Healing Brush (new in CS2), designed for fixing small imperfections, eliminates the first step. You do not have to sample an area first. We're talking one-click correction! The Spot Healing Brush automatically samples pixel information from around the retouched area.

6 6 of 10 Try this tool on the black marks in the snow near the bottom right of the image. Figure 10 - Dust spots in the snow cry out for the Spot Healing Brush. To access the tool, you can either click and hold on the Healing Brush tool icon, or press Shift+J keys repeatedly until the Spot Healing Brush shows up. &# # '( ##"##""! # This tool adds pixel data based on sampling the last saved version of the file, so if your damaged areas are in close proximity, you may find that you end up creating a new defect. If this happens, you can try using a smaller brush, or simply click over the newly created problem and attempt to remove it. Stamp of Approval Our last damaged area is a black line across the windows of the steamship in the background. Here we want to reproduce exact details, so we'll call on the Clone Stamp Tool and a small brush size to fix the problem. % &# ) #% *+,##" ##"!. Figure 11 - Zoomed in to just over 1000%. Note the position of the sampling cross hair for the Clone Stamp tool. -!# "! * ##" ## " ###"

7 7 of 10 With such a small brush size, you may have to stamp over the area more than once. This is fine to do so long as you get the result you want. I was able to brush over the scratched area several times without releasing the mouse button. A Great Patch Job If you have a large area that needs to be fixed the Patch tool might be just what you are looking for. In our sample image, there's a large area near the lower left that shows snowmobile tracks. I'd like this area to look more pristine, and rather than try to use the Clone Stamp or Healing Brush, the Patch tool will do the job quickly and effectively. The Patch tool lets you fix a selected area by using pixels from another area or a pattern. It matches texture, lighting and shading just like the Healing Brush, but you don't use a brush to do the work. )## ),/"!# )## Figure 12 - Option Bar attributes for the Patch tool. 0##"%0 # # ##* " Figure 13 - Use the Patch tool to make a selection around the area to be patched %. 1# 2## 1#"!$"3"# ) 45! 3##! Finishing Touches It was a bright and sunny day when I took this photo, which results in a fair amount of contrast. It was important to me that I expose the shot to retain some detail in the white hulls of the ships, but this meant that my background went a bit darker than desired, especially the trees.

8 8 of 10 It is not always easy or possible to get the right exposure on every object in a brightly lit, contrast-laden scene. Sometimes the best you can hope for is a good average exposure and then, either in the dark room or in Photoshop, use the right tools to bring those details out. That said, if no real detail is within those pixels, you won't get much help from either the Dodge or Burn tools. Fortunately for me (and us) my camera was able to capture a lot more detail than is immediately noticeable Artful Dodging We'll use the Dodge and Burn tools to adjust the brightness of specific parts of the image. We'll lighten up the tree line using the Dodge tool and darken parts of the Segwun steamship with the Burn tool. % #"&" #!# " )#0 ),+0# + 6!78 89/":"! 0 6! # Figure 14 - Options for the Dodge tool. -#!: #! #!#""! "!## Below you can see before and after examples of applying the Dodge tool. Continue brightening the tree line that you can see running across the background. Try using smaller brushes or different amounts of exposure, but I recommend sticking with the Midtone range for the best results.

9 9 of 10 Figure 15 - Before dodging, the trees, cottage and even the lamp post were very dark and lacking in detail. Figure 16 - After dodging, the foliage is opened up and we can see further into the background. Feeling the Burn Just because I'm a picky sod, I'd like to darken down a few of the really bright areas on the ship in the foreground: the life boat on the top deck and the side of the ship, including the wooden "bumpers" that run across the hull. By using a small brush, low exposure value (15%) and keeping the range set to Midtones, I can slightly darken the brighter areas and also add more noticeable density to places like the wooden bumpers, effectively increasing the local contrast, without making things look unnatural. The effect of burning is

10 10 of 10 more noticeable on the bumpers and windows because there are more midtone brightness values present in those areas. Again, use your own judgment as to how much burning you actually do. The key is to keep things looking normal. Below is our final image. Conclusion As you can see, Photoshop has some very nifty tools available for correcting an image and they aren't that difficult to use. While we did not need to use all the tools in the retouching section of the tool bar, future tutorials may deal with those that were left out. In Part 2 of this series, we'll look at some of the other correction features you will find in Photoshop CS2, such as the Highlight/Shadow Command, Photo Filters, Variations, Auto Color, Auto Levels and Levels. We'll touch up - err - touch base again soon! Approximate download size: 1.8MB Keywords Photoshop CS2, retouching, bitmap tools, clone stamp, healing brush, spot healing brush, dodge tool, burn tool, #;-<==>==7