Open the sunbathing 2 from Stock.xchng, then crop it down to about 24×24 inches, removing the majority of the sky.
Step 2
Use the Quick Selection Tool, to do a rough
selection of the girl. Make the brush size about 37 pixels in diameter
at 100% hardness. brush over the image of the girl to do the quick
selection.
Step 3
Now use the new Refine Edge tools in Photoshop CS5 to help us out. Click on the Refine Edge button.
The first thing you should do is decide which “View Mode”
you want to work with, this will all depend on the image you are
working on. With this particular image we want to see the outline of the
hair, so go ahead and set the View Mode to Black and White, this will give us a nice mask.
Step 4
Set the Edge Detection to Smart Radius, then bump the Radius up to 99.0%
Step 5
Change the View Mode to Black, you will notice that the model has some blue from the sky in her hair and on the edges of her skin.
Step 6
Turn on Decontaminate Colors and set the amount to 68%
Tweak your settings by switching back and forth between view modes. When you are satisfied, set your Output to New Layer With Mask. Then press OK.
You will notice that Photoshop automatically created a new layer with a mask and turned off your original image layer.
Step 7
Now open the Sunset from Astoria, Queens image from Stock.xchng, copy and paste the image below the new Mask Layer (layer with the girl). See final Image below.
With the photo newly opened in Photoshop, we can see in the
Layers palette that we currently have one layer, the Background layer,
which is the layer our image is sitting on:
Even though our goal is to make the original photo look
better, we still want to protect the original image, so let's add a new
blank layer above the Background layer. We'll do all of our spot healing
work on this separate layer. Click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette:
Step 2: Rename The New Layer
Photoshop adds the new blank layer above the Background
layer, but by default, it names the layer "Layer 1". That doesn't tell
us much about what the layer is being used for, so double-click directly
on the layer's name in the Layers palette and rename it spot healing.
It's not uncommon when retouching images to end up with lots of layers,
and giving each one a descriptive name makes it easier to keep them
organized. Press Enter (Win) / Return (Mac) when you're done to accept the new name:
Step 3: Select The Spot Healing Brush
Select the Spot Healing Brush from the Tools palette.
You'll find it grouped in with the other healing tools. If one of the
other tools is showing in place of the Spot Healing Brush, click on the
tool and hold your mouse button down for a second or two until a small
fly-out menu appears, then select the Spot Healing Brush from the menu:
Step 4: Select The "Sample All Layers" Option
By default, the Spot Healing Brush works only with the
layer that's currently selected in the Layers palette, which will cause
us some problems if we try to use it right now since we have a blank
layer selected, which means that all we'd be able to do is replace
nothing with different nothing. We need to tell Photoshop to look at the
image on the Background layer as well. To do that, select the Sample All Layers option in the Options Bar along the top of the screen:
Step 5: Click On The Problem Spots To Heal Them
With the Spot Healing Brush and the Sample All Layers
option selected, all we need to do now is click on problem areas in the
image to fix them! I'll zoom in on an area of the girl's face so I can
see the problem spots more clearly, then I'll move my brush cursor over
one of the pimples and adjust my brush size with the left or right
bracket key so it's just slightly larger than the pimple itself:
Use the keyboard shortcut to make the brush cursor a bit larger than the problem spot.
I'll click on the pimple with the Spot Healing Brush, and
just like that, it's gone, replaced with good texture from somewhere in
the surrounding area:
One click is all it took to remove the pimple.
As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the Spot Healing Brush can make a mistake, so if that happens, just press Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z
(Mac) to undo it and try again. Each time you try again, you'll get a
different, random result. I'll continue clearing up other pimples in
the area by moving my brush over them, adjusting its size with the left
or right bracket key, and clicking:
For problem areas that don't fit easily into the round
shape of the brush cursor, like small scratches or oddly-shaped skin
blemishes, simply click and drag over them, again keeping the brush as
small as possible. Here, we see a longer, narrow row of pimples just
below the corner of the girl's mouth:
Not all problem areas can fit inside the round brush cursor.
To heal this area, I'll click and drag a short stroke over
it, starting just below the pimples and moving upward. As you drag, it
will look as if you're painting over the area with black. The color is
only temporary so you can see the area you've covered:
Dragging with the Spot Healing Brush looks like we're painting with black.
When you release your mouse button, the black color disappears and the area is healed:
For best results, use short brush strokes when you need to click and drag across an area.
The direction you drag in can make a big difference in the
results because Photoshop favors the area you started dragging from when
it looks for replacement texture. If you can't seem to get the Spot
Healing Brush to work no matter how many times you drag over the
problem, try dragging from a different direction, and whenever possible,
begin dragging from the cleanest area with the largest amount of
useable image data.
The Brush Modes
If you're using the Spot Healing Brush to remove acne or
other skin problems as I am here, you'll often get even better results
by changing the Brush Mode in the Options Bar from Normal (the default setting) to Lighten:
Try the Lighten brush mode when fixing skin problems.
With the brush mode set to Lighten, Photoshop will only
replace pixels that are darker than the good texture data. Since pimples
and other skin blemishes are usually darker than normal skin tone, only
the pimple or blemish itself gets replaced, leaving more of the
original image surrounding it intact. If a blemish happens to be lighter
than the normal skin tone, use the Darken mode. You can quickly switch between all of the brush modes for the Spot Healing Brush from your keyboard by holding down the Shift key and pressing the + or - keys.
Proximity Match and Create Texture
Directly to the right of the brush mode in the Options Bar are two additional options, Proximity Match and Create Texture.
Proximity Match is the default setting and with it selected, Photoshop
looks for good image data surrounding the problem area you've clicked on
and randomly selects texture from the good area to replace the bad
texture with. Sometimes though, there simply isn't enough good image
data to use and no matter how many times you try, the Spot Healing Brush
fails miserably. When you find yourself in this situation, try
selecting the Create Texture option. Photoshop will examine the
surrounding area and create its own texture based on what it thinks the
good texture should look like.
When there isn't enough good image data for Proximity Match to work, try the Create Texture option.
I'll continue clicking around the image to remove the remaining pimples. Here, once again, is how the photo looked originally:
And here's how it looks after quickly retouching it with the Spot Healing Brush:
Was I able to fix every problem with the Spot Healing
Brush? No. It's hard to see in the screenshot, but there's a couple of
larger scars on her forehead and chin that would be a better match for
the regular Healing Brush. However, with nothing more than a couple of
minutes of my time and a few clicks of the mouse, Photoshop's Spot
Healing Brush was able to do a fantastic job of removing the girl's acne
and leaving smooth, healthy looking skin in its place.
