Lessons

Lesson Info

10:45 am - Retouching Tools Continued

Start off this session using some of the same tools were used on the last session, but we'll use a different kind of image, so you'll see that use some of the same concepts with a few modifications. Eso why don't we work on portrait? Here's, another shot of my friend cassandra and let's see what we can do there. I'm going to start off by using the spot healing brush remember the spot healing brushes, the one where it decides what the copy from? It also tries to blend in with its surroundings when you use it, and with that, I can often use thie spot healing brush to get rid of flyaway hairs, so if we have any little hairs, just come in here, the brush, paint them away. One thing I should mention that I didn't mention the previous images is whenever I use thie spot healing brush, I always use a hard edge brush with it. Oftentimes you get used to thinking about soft edged brushes because you think, well, hey, this needs to fade out into the surrounding so that you don't see a very distinc...

t edge on it. But if I use a soft edge brush, I'm preventing the any of the healing brushes for having control over what happens all the way out to the edge of my brush, so if it's supposed to precisely match the brightness and color of the surroundings it doesn't have control of what's happening out on the edge, so how can it precisely match if I use a hard edge brush? It can precisely match the brightness in the color of the surroundings, so I find that most of the time it will work better anything with the word healing attached if I use a hard edge brush, and so that is what I will frequently do. In fact, the every time you've seen use it so far, it's been a hard edge brush. So anyway, with small flyaway hairs, the spot healing brush usually does pretty done a good job with on occasion, you'll try to get rid of one. It'll just put it back because it's, looking at the surrounding saying, hey, there's hair here, so we should put hair back, and if you try it, remember three strikes and you're out, you know, try three times in the area or trying to fix, and if for some reason it just will not get rid of it, come on, then switched to a different tool, maybe used the normal healing brush tool and try to do it because with such thin harris on the edge when it tries to blend in with the surroundings, in this particular case, there's mohr background and there is hair in those areas and it's usually not going to really pick up on the really thin hairs when it comes to trying to match their surroundings so that you can usually not worry about it. You can just use either the spot healing brush or if it copies from the wrong stuff that a normal healing brush, then let's look at other things with this image, I'm going again use the spot healing brush this time I'm going to use it in here on some facial areas, the n any time I use any of the retouching tools, it is very rare for me to work directly on the background layer. I have up until now, just to keep things simple. Uh, I usually likely retouching to be on a separate layer, so if I ever screw up, I can always get back to the original, because sometimes I'm not going to notice a screw up until weeks later, when I make a print or if I send something off to a client, they don't get a chance to look at it for a few days, and then they come back and they say, why did you retouch out whatever that I thought was obvious should be read such doubt, so I'd rather not work directly on the image they're two different approaches for how to get your retouching to be on a separate layer. One of those approaches is to duplicate the background layer there's a keyboard shortcut that's useful for doing that it's command j on a mac control jay and windows to remember it just thinking of his jumping something to a new layer jump out to new layer with command j I personally don't do that because when you type command jay, you double your file size first off and I want to make it really easy for me to be able to a race with the eraser tool wherever I messed up and then just re touch again in that spot. And if the image itself is in that later when I a race, I'm erasing the the image that the retouching tool needs to get to a cz well, uh it's, just less convenient. I also want to be able to turn off the background layer and on ly seem a retouching, meaning I can tell exactly where it all is, whereas if the image itself is in that layer to how could I turn off the image and just see the retouched parts? It's I'm not saying you shouldn't never do that I'm just saying I personally don't and so let me show you how I do it I'm going to create a brand new empty layer just going to go to the bottom my layers panel and just to the left of the trash can is the new layer icon. I'll click that to create my new layer and that's what's going to be active when I do my retouching with default settings. Though the retouching tools don't work on an empty layer, they just don't do anything because with default settings, there can only copy from one layer that's, the layer, that's active there's nothing in that way, or I just made its empty. So what I need to do is change the settings on the three tools we're going to be using. First, I'm going to go to my clone stamp tool, and when that tool is active at the top of my screen in the options bar there's a setting here called sample, and that means what can it copy from? And the default settings current layer that's what's, forcing it to only think about one layer, click there. I said it to current and below in that way can copy from not only the layer and working on, but whatever's under it by doing that now that tool will work on an empty layer because it's able to copy from the layer that's underneath it, which is where the picture is contained, then I'm next I'm going to switch to the healing brush tool because it also has a setting that needs to be changed so in the healing brush, we also have the setting called sample and I'll set it toe current and below. Then there was a third tool that we ended up using and it wass the spot healing brush and so we'll go to that one it doesn't have the exact same setting there's no pop up menu up there to change, but there is a check box that we can turn on for sample all layers, and that will allow it to work when you have an empty layer active, so with those settings set up the way they are had to change it for each of the tools I'm going to be using now we can work in that empty layer, so I'm going to come over here and use my spot healing brush, and here we have some little wrinkles on the edge of the eyes. I'll come over here and see if I can get this to smooth those out this pain over each one here, maybe paint over the group of them. I'm using the, uh, spot healing brush, which figures out where to copy from we're in an area where surrounding it has a lot of different kinds of detail and so might choose the wrong kind of texture, and if so, I'm just going to give it three strikes before I switch to something else, but after three tries we're not doing too bad so I could come in here and try to smooth out these areas now if it starts copying from the wrong areas off, switch over to the healing brush and with the healing brush tool aiken tell photo shop where to copy from so I just come down here it's a copy from her cheek and option click come up here and say ok, now use it over here and it could do that and I'm going to have a little bit more control if I do that but I have to be overly careful because it's very easy to repeat detail pours to any pores that look unique, you know, uniquely shaped ones. I have one right here where there's like a little double due to add there you could see the same double one up here and so I need to be very careful of that kind of replication. So oftentimes I will copy from the opposite side of the photograph or I'll copy from further away look down smooth area the chandler neck. But it's gotta be appropriate in for this particular area might only be the two cheeks, maybe a little of the forehead I could copy from so at least I got to consider that and I might want to come in here and just cover up some of that duplicated texture uh in look for it now if I've done this problem with skin is if you completely totally remove something that most everybody has especially if somebody is not twelve years old instead they're you know, in their twenties or thirties uh they're not going to look right you know they're going to look like they had some sort of, you know, face job like they're being stretched their skin and so oftentimes what I'll end up doing is I'll take the layer that contains that retouching and here you'll see the advantage of working on an empty layer if I hide the layer that's underneath, you could just see where the recession is, you know, the rest of the pictures not in there so it's very easy to see where it is if I want to race part of it, I just grabbed the eraser tool race it away, that kind of thing, but the other thing I'm going to do is with this layer at the top of my layers panel we haven't opacity control and I'll just lower the capacity to make it so I can see through the retouching to the original it's underneath and maybe if I haven't opacity of fifty percent instead of completely removing something, I'm just going to lessen its impact now when I adjust the opacity, I don't deal with the number itself you can click on the number and type something in I never do that also there's a down pointing arrow on the right you could click on and you get a little slider I never do that instead click on the word opacity and just drag left or right it's known as a scrubby slider and it works with many things like here's phil I could do the same thing there many other settings and photoshopped cry clicking on the names of them and dragged left to right to modify the setting so what I'll end up doing is I'll click on this all dragged to the left oh goes to zero and then I'll slowly dragged to the right will I watch my picture so let's do that some clicking on the word opacity I dragged to left field goes to zero slowly dragged to the right one looking around her eye and I'm saying what is the highest setting I can get away with before I think that you know there's some before it looks natural where it leaves the natural look and starts looking photoshopped so if I get it up too high it looks like that's gone and just doesn't look right but maybe somewhere in there forty five percent I wouldn't notice that I did it at all but if I hide this layer of the difference between this in this I think it's considerable but it's going to look much more natural so oftentimes what I'll end up doing is I'll have more than one layer for re touching my first layer will be getting rid of things completely, and that will be where I get rid of acne in other temporary stuff. If somebody's got a scratch on their face, that would not be there a month later, I'll just blatantly retouch it out, then I'll create another new layer, and this is for stuff, but I don't want to get rid of instead, I just wanted toned down and I'll go and in first, every touch it completely out it's, like I did over here, but when I'm done, I lower the opacity on the layer to control exactly how much of it on influencing with that. Just remember, you have to take each one of your retouching tools and change their settings so that they can work on an empty layer, because with all those retouching tools, the default settings on ly allows it to work on one layer at a time. You can't look at the information that's below, so those are some of the things I might consider down here in the neck click or there's a neck line, that kind of thing. Sometimes we'll completely get rid of one, but if I do that every little instances like that, I don't think they look real. And so often times there are some that I'll just tone down by using a different opacity let's think about some other tools that we can use as well we've talked about three general tools that I used most frequently, but there are some others that I find to be overly helpful and some that some people will end up using but I don't use quite is frequently and I'll tell you why there is also in here the patch tool and you'll find that I rarely use it pashto the one reason why I rarely used the patch tool is first off let's see what it does then I'll show you why and find it to be a little bit less useful what it is is I can circle around something it acts like a lasso tool when you first get into it like this just like the last hotel you're making a selection in fact you could start with any selection tool to actually define the area and then switched to the patch tool then you click on the area that you are thinking about changing and you drag it somewhere else within your picture and when you let go this is the area that's going to be copied and it's going to be applied where the original shape was so in this case this wouldn't be inappropriate area to copy from because we don't have the edge of the sign in there you know that part of the bottom, so I'd probably have to try to copy from over here. I'm gonna try to get the edge of the sign, the lineup, not going to be able to get it to be precisely lined up because I'd have to rotate it, but I'll try and I let go, and it does the work it's in general, a replacement for the healing brush. The only thing is, the only difference is how do you define the area that you're trying to retouch and the area of copying from? And in this case, you do it by making a selection like this, and then you drag it to the areas like to copy from it has the same problems that you run into with your healing brush so you could use the same solutions to fix them remember how we could sever the ends of those lines that it would work fine, but if you look at the top of my screen and the options bar, there is no option up there to allow it to work on an empty layer. It needs the entire image in that layer toe work well, not the entire image it needs whatever surrounding your area of retouching in the area going to copy from to be on one layer, and I don't like that at all. I always like having very touching on a separate layer now there is another stunning you can change in here and there's a couple other things in here that are useful so why don't we look at those before we get into the other details? So first off up here we have the choice of source in destination you see that let's just figure out what that does with default settings it's set to source and what source means is my initial selection that I draw out with this is going to be the area that needs to be re touched my source is what they're going to call that and then I drag it to the destination meaning the stuff I'm going to copy and that's how it works I could choose undoing instead I could select the area I want a copy from and do the opposite drag it over on top of the thing I want to cover up but to do that and have it sent us the destination now instead select the area one a copy from and I drag it on top of the thing I want to get rid of and so it's reversing the way it it's thinking that would mainly be useful if the area that you can copy from is overly limited and shape and size that you could let's say this is the only thing copy is what's in between these little shadowy lines thanks a find. This is the only part that's safe to copy from and then I could drag it somewhere else to say use that to cover something else. But most the time I find that it's not overly useful. Another thing you can do is if I select an area, there is a choice that will only show up after you've drawn on your picture. If I haven't drawn this selection out yet, this button called use pattern, will not be available. Watch if I just click and let go it's great out, you have to first select the area you want toe put it in. Instead of copying from another area of my picture, I could tell photoshopped to instead use a pattern that I have installed here. I'm going to choose a wood grain pattern that I happened have installed and then there's a button called use pattern. If I click it it's going to instead of copying from another area of my picture it's going to be copying from that pattern. If I wanted to end up putting grain in the sky, I could create a pattern of grain like there's ways to create seamless patterns and then I could apply it if I wanted to create a large pattern of skin tone something like that and I end up retouching somebody's face and I find that just it looks to smooth it doesn't look riel, I could tell it okay, now fill this was some of this texture, which might be a pattern of skin tone, that kind of thing, then we also have a choice called transparent and let me see if I can find an image that could be appropriate for transparent. So usually if I use this tool, aiken circle around an object like this, and then I drag somewhere else to say this is what I'd like to replace it with, and when I let go it, make sure it blends in with the surroundings similar to how we use thie killing brush. The only difference is the way you're defining what needs to be retouched is instead of painting, you're making a selection, but instead of doing that, I can choose, undo and I can turn on transparent, and now it thinks that the area that I'm copying from shouldn't be used to replace this instead, it should be used to add a transparent overlay were texture to it, so let's see what happens if I dragged in the same general area now? I mean she's un deal do you see how it's adding that texture is like a transparent overlay, so if you ever want to add texture to something, this is one way you could do it. All I did is I turn on the transparent check box and then it means do not completely replace what's in this election instead, add this texture that I have out here as like a transparent overlay, and I think I have another an inch here that could be used let's say you have a building like this one and I would like this to look more like brushed metal where it has the brush strokes like the the look of it. Well, I'm going to just create a fake brushed metal texture, let's see if we can figure out how to do that is create a new document here, I'm just going to make it relatively big. I don't know the resolution that document I'm going to guess get it's big enough for that document and in hear what I'm going to do is I'm just going to run a filter that's called ad noise that was filter noise, ad noise I'll tell to be monochromatic meaning not colorful and then I'm going to come in here and run a different filter and that will be motion blur imagine you took a picture of that and moved your cameras he did now make it so it does vertical and always bring it up high enough so it starts looking a little bit like brush mental fake fake brush medal right add noise motion blur you wanted to look like woven stuff just motion blur twice do it once the other direction and then when you're done ad contrast there's a choice in here called auto contrast that one didn't look quite as good don't blurt as much if you blur it less it will look more like a woven I think by the way here's my brush metal what I'm going to do then is just come in here and select all and go to the edit menu there's a choice in there that should be called defined pattern we'll say brushed metal all right now close the accent needed anymore if to find it is a pattern and I'd like to apply it to this building so I could selected area within this building and I'll get it off of this little window over here when you have this this works like any selection tool meaning any keyboard shortcuts you could usually hold down to add to or take away from a selection you can use here you can also switch to normal selection tools to modify this selection so I'm gonna hold on option right now it takes away get rid of a few spots where I don't need metal texture right now I haven't such a transparent I can go over here to the pattern if I click on the little triangle that's next to the pattern, the very last panel should be the one I have defined, and I mean hit use pattern and you see, now we have more of this look of brushed metal, and so it brain taints the detail. It was in the original picture, but it's going to add that? So if you ever have something that doesn't quite have the texture you need, you just need to find that texture and define it as a pattern. A pattern is usually something. It repeats over and over again, like tiles on a bathroom wall. But if you just create the thie original texture huge as big as your document, it will never have a chance to repeat. So therefore it will apply a texture, but it will never repeats it's so big that it's larger than the document you're applying it within. Imagine use a tile bigger than your bathroom wall it's never going to be able to repeat, but you can do that over, you know, big areas, a texture like this use pattern. You see how it went right over the windows, so it's kind of an interesting wayto to do that now, just so you know, my texture happened to be shades of gray and that's what I usually use, because if I don't have shades of gray and instead I have a colorful pattern here, I have one of some bricks, and I say, use pattern it's going to bring in a lot of the color from it as well, and it could look a little odd, especially in this case, because the grout wasn't that color in the original pattern, so I find if I stick with shades of gray in my pattern, then it doesn't influence the colors. So then there's another setting in here if I turn off transparent number one in the patch tool. So far, we've had the patch tool set to normal. If I click there this another choice called content aware, and when I said it to content to where now it's going to act more like the spot healing brush did remember how the spot healing brush figured out? What to, uh, what this area should look like based on the surroundings? Well, now I can go over here and circle around something, and I still, though, have to drag it somewhere in what I'm doing is I'm just telling it what kind of stuff in the surroundings who should this be similar to it's not going to blatantly copy this area, it's going to, um just figure out what it thinks is similar to that area that I dragged over but would match what's in here and you find that it didn't have as many problems on the ends if you look down the very bottom it was able to deal with that because with content aware it figured out hey there's a bar right here I shouldn't just blatantly apply something I should put something that would belong so I could go around these little areas so it's a little bit like content aware with some influence where you khun help it to decide what to use I could tell it to use just sky and you see it's still did the ends pretty nice what's nice also about having the patch tool set to content aware is if I have an empty layer in here that I end up putting my re touching on it does have the control called sample all heirs that's on lee when it's set to the content we're setting the normal setting it doesn't so that might be more useful for some of these telephone lines because it seems to do a better job on the ends so I can do this sample all layers content aware drag it to an area that is similar in texture what I think should be there and see if it does okay on the ends depends how complex the ends are in this case it didn't do great and that's, when I might just put in those ends manually, just like we did on other tools. So anyway, content aware is a nice feature with the patch tool, since it has sample all layers, then I don't mind using it, but when it's set to normal, I never use it because when it's a normal mode, uh, this is not going to have sample all layers in it. It finally changed back and that's the main reason why I don't use it. Let's, look at one other feature that is useful, and that is, if I just go to the lasso tool in select areas, we have one other choice. If I go to the edit menu and I choose fill the default setting in photo shop, cs six is a choice called content aware in concept, where always means look at the surroundings and say, if this area have selected did not exist, what does it think would naturally look right here based on the surroundings? And so if I just use content aware, click ok, it does pretty good, and I find that the content aware choice does an excellent job when you bump into the edge of a photograph and that's, where the healing brush and the patch tool usually fail you so let's see if I can find a more interesting example I want to clean up the corners the problem is if I use most tools they have to have me tell it what to copy from if I use something like clone source or the hailing brush but where is their open area of sky to copy from that's now doesn't have leaves or anything in it well, I could come in here and try like let's say the spot healing brush the problem with the spot healing brushes it figures out what to put in there that's great but it blends in with its surroundings and when it gets to the edge of the photograph there's nothing beyond the edge for to blend in with so it only sees what used to be there. So when I let go it's going to see the old tree there and try to blend in with the colors of the old tree, try that again give it three strikes we'll give it two strikes in this case because I know it's going to mess up, blending in with the colors that used to be out on the edge but I find content aware works much better when something's bumping into something else like that then I can go up here and she's phil content aware click ok and it just says, what should this look like if this part wasn't there and it could do a much better job it's not always perfect, though let's see if we can get it to clean up the rest of these corners, cross your fingers it helps masses up a little bit but just select that smaller area that it messed up on and give it another chance. Majesty knows a short cut for getting to the phil dialog box if you do on a mac shift delete it will send you there and since the default setting is content aware, just hit the return key afterwards and that'll just apply it now the delete cam windows is the backspace key so shift back space on windows and so there I did all right, we'll try one last corner here now here you see it bumps into the tree that's where it might come into a few issues and shift leap return at least on this image in the past it's messed up on that corner wow, it didn't do debt that see how it fixed like what was on the corner there, so just select what doesn't look right shift elite return this doesn't look quite smooth over here smooth it out and we can always switch to like spot healing brush if you want to just paint instead but do you see how it was really able to clean that stuff up let's see if I get one last spot out here I don't know if it'll be able to figure that out or not that nuts I mean, it figured out what to d'oh, but it works much better when there are things bumping into the edge of other objects and the edge of your photos, but you'll find that I don't use it as often as you might think I should let me show you why revert, I just chose revert from the file menu to get back to the original. I don't like working directly on the layer that contains my original picture. I like working on an empty layer that's just my work flow if I have an empty layer and I make a selection up here and I do shift lee return more frequently than not, this message comes up and it just is not very good at working an empty layer on occasion, it works, but more often than not, it will give me that message let's see if I do a small area, so it doesn't like working on empty layer and that's one reason why I use it less frequently than I'd like to. I wish they would make it work better on manipulator. You can always take command j, though duplicate the background later, we just work on a duplicate layer, eyes just that I prefer to work on an empty layer instead of a duplicate file sizes smaller in a more versatile and what I can accomplish with that just a quick question go from as you're going shade k from spain so what is the difference between patch tool with content aware and filled content aware? Is it just how you select? Is that the only difference? Or is there anything else going on in the background? Uh, the patch toll with content aware is content and where phil with some influence, meaning where you drag it too influence is what kind of content you're going to end up with him there. So imagine if content aware always gave you the wrong kind of stuff it's just the wrong texture, you could switch to the patch tool used the content where setting and then drag to stuff that is similar to what should be in there, and you're going to a different kind of fill in there based on where you drag it too. So it's constant aware fill with influence whereas otherwise going to the edit menu in choosing phil, you have no influence on what it's going to put in there. All right, could you remind us or show us again how you can exclude an area from us election and that was from if you have any image with any selection tool or with the patch tool doesn't matter what if you have a selection and you want to add to it, you can hold on the shift key and just draw more and it'll add, and they don't have to be connected. I could add over here to take away from instead of holding down the shift key, I hold on the option key, which is alton windows, and then wherever I draw it's going to remove that from my selection. So if I ended up with initial selection, that should not have overlapped in area, I hold on the option keyed in a draw around that part I shouldn't have selected and that's true in any selection tool it's also true when I'm in the patch tool. So if I made my selection a little too big didn't mean to overlap that little pool at the bottom, hold on the option key alton windows and just say hey didn't mean that area you could take away. If you hate keyboard shortcuts, you're more than welcome to go to the top left of your screen and that's what these icons do here if you want to know what they do, just hover over them without clicking on it. So if I hover here that's going to make a brand new selection, if I click again and drag here, it would add to the selection instead here would subtract it here will give me the intersection meaning on lee were one selection overlaps another you could think of it is let's crop the selection that already exists. So it's only in I gotta choose that setting it's only in this area. So I just cropped it so that's, how you do it way have two more questions on layers. So sherri, from lake stevens washington is wondering what the difference is between using current and below and all layers when using an empty later. Well, it means literally should a copy from the layer you're currently working on in what's underneath it or should also think about the layers that are above that. And oftentimes I end up with a very complex image. We shouldn't have too many of these open at once because some of these air huge, uh and with an image like this, if you look at all the layers that I have in here when I turn them on, uh, I got a bunch of complex retouching going on. Where is doing all this kind of work on it? Separated in different areas. Let's say I go back and I want to refine one of these layers here I have a layer called weeds be gone, it's taking out all this stuff, I want to go back because I forgot one little part, and I want to work on that. Well, if I'm using one of my retouching tools and I haven't set to current and below in my layers panel it's only going to copy from what's on this layer and what's on the layers that are underneath it, whatever the image would look like is if I turned off the eyeballs and all the layers above that's the only thing it'll copy from and that would be appropriate for working on a layer like this if I haven't said toe all layers it will copy from is if I emerged all these layers together into one and then it'll deposit the end result on the later I'm working on the problem with that is all the stuff above is going to influence what I end up with it can look kind of odd if you have it too if you haven't set toe all layers um how should I say I rarely I would say it out of the tens of thousands of images I work on I would say it's only about two percent of them were all ares is more useful than current and below so I would say current and blows what you want the vast majority of time fantastic, you know somebody's going to ask what the heck does that d'oh? Well, while these well we wait for that question to come through, I have another question here from beats for thirty five I mean, sometimes they do different retouching on different layers, but I want each one of them to sample from the background is their way to do that. If the layer I'm right touching isn't directly above the background or do I need to reorder the layers first? Ok, it sounds like they want to on ly copy from the background. If that's what you want to do, you want to take whatever tool it is you're working with in set it to current layer current layer should really be called one layer you know, uh, and usually means, which later is currently active, but what you khun dio is simply target the bottom layer, meaning make the bottom layer active in your document at the time that you take that tool and you option, click with it. So when I option, click on the image, which is how I tell it where to copy from. Make sure your bottom layers active option click, then switched to the layer you want the retouching to appear on and go ahead and apply it on in this case, there's other layers above that are obstructing what I'm getting to turn those layers off, but I'll go to the layers that have murals. Because that way the memorial will be gone you know, just create any layer up here okay? I have a new layer appearing in apply things too, but at the moment I option clicked my image I had the bottom layer active and my tool is set to current layer which means the layer that was currently active at the moment I option clicked on my document so now when I apply and if you could tell but it's applying from the old mural that that's on the bottom layer so just for that particular person is I think a lot of other people's heads will probably start toe spin around or something and if you try to think about it center to current layer make sure the layer you want to copy from his active at the moment you option click then switched a layer you want the retouching to be deposited on and go ahead and apply it it'll work uh it's just sometimes weird to think about, but it works awesome one more question on these tools before we move on yeah, right away six says on dna from antioch, california can you use the selection tool to make selections to block off where the spot healing brush gets its source point from um you'll find in some older versions of photo shop you could do that, but in newer versions it doesn't seem to work so instead use a layer mask use a layer mask to hide areas so there's simply not visible at the time that you use the retouching tool and then it won't be able to copy from those areas eso you might want to consider adding layer master, hide whatever you don't want to think about and that's true anytime you use like the content aware features if there's just seems to copy from an area that has nothing to do with what it should just masking off of the layer mass so it's hidden and then used the tool again and it won't even know that that part exists. One tip I want to give you that we didn't get a chance to get into previously is uh, something I find to be overly useful and that is when I'm using any retouching tool where I have to option click to tell it where to copy from here's something that I would frequently do let's say one option click right here to copy and then I'm gonna applied over here but I need a small brush when I'm applying it. I try to get this tow line up and often times I'll be off by like one pixel and it seems to be really difficult so here's a tip about it if I get a big brush a brush much larger than I would ever need, you know I find it easier to line things up especially if I could see off both ends isn't it easier to get this tow line up? Hopes they didn't mean to click right now, it should be easier to get this to line up with that poll compared to if the brush was only this big and I'm trying to get it to line up it's much harder to see is not so what I'll end up doing is this. I'll get my brush get much bigger than I need using the bracket keys on my keyboard, I'll get it to match up and I'll actually click, even though it's much bigger of a brush that I need so clicking let go, then I'll choose undo because I didn't want to fill in area that big didn't want to fill in area that big. I was just using an area that big to make it easy for me to line things I choose undue, so it hasn't applied it, but what it did is it locked in the alignment? Now? Do you see what's inside? My brush is not moving around it's, not as if I'm trying to tell it where to put it anymore. When I actually click the mouse that established that, and so now I can apply it with a small brush. Do that once more let's say I wanted to get this to a line over here, but I was only going to use a small brush to actually do the painting option click over here to say that's where I want to copy from when I'm over here trying to get into a line it's kind of hard to align with a small brush so get a big one get it to a line it's much easier to tell when it's lined up with the big brush click the mouse to actually establish that is where you want to apply it but I didn't want to apply that big of a space so she's undue but it's still remembers the relationship between where you originally option clicked and where you're about to apply so now I can choose small brushes I want to actually come in there imply it so I find that to be overly useful was a tip that I wanted to make sure I didn't neglect to mention all right now let's get into other ideas sometimes reach much retouching is a pain how would you like to retouch all all those scratches? No thanks let's make it a lot easier to retouch out those scratches what I'm going to do is take one of mine retouching tools and in this case just for illustration purposes I will use the normal clone stamp tool I'm in a copy from an area that is over here option click and I'm going to apply it down here. The problem is, when I apply it, it completely replaces the content that was there, and I get a blatant repeat so that if I were to copy here option click where there's a scratch and applied over here. I'm going to get that blatant scratch again, right? We're just blatantly copying well with my retouching tools. I will frequently go up here and change the mode of them, and I find the choice of darken and the choice of lightened to be very useful. If you look at these scratches in order to get rid of the scratches and I'm going to have to too dark in them or lighten them, I think in this case I'm going to have to darken in order to get rid of him. Now this tool, the on ly thing it's capable of doing is darkening the photo. It is incapable of lightning it which means even if I copy from right here, where there's a blatant scratch if I try to put it over here, the only way that scratch could show up is if it was able to light in the photograph, right? But this is in darkened mode and it's not capable of doing so, so when I click, the scratch doesn't even show up. That kind of weird because that could only dark in my image, so that means I can just copy without being overly careful, and I can easily get rid of a lot of scratches by simply copying other scratch to areas in the surroundings. Ah, copy from over here and I'll apply right there. The scratches don't reappear because it's not able to lighten the photo and that's how scratches we moved over. The scratches are lighter than the background, so I just copy from a area nearby and apply it copy for another area nearby and apply it and continue doing that with whatever various retouching tools I might be comfortable with it because it's in darkened mode, I'm not getting as much of a blatant copy because it's only going to be able to darken anything that's lighter won't be put in, and so I find that that khun be overly useful, especially with overly scratched images, because I can get rid of the scratches without transporting any to a different area. Lightner darkened modes could look very well also works nights on portrait, so if you're working around eyes and things, you don't want to completely remove something, try lightened motor darkened mode, it's only going to get rid of the darker or the brighter areas that are in there, you're not going to completely replace everything that's underneath