When lightening the areas under the eyes (eye bags) whats the best way to go. I have tried using dodge tool but tend to get a very white patchy look.

Should i heal or stamp or use the brush to paint.

thanks all

You might try adding a layer above filled with white and set to lighten or screen mode. Add a hide all (mask filled with black) and with low opacity soft white brush paint the offending areas on the mask. Adjust the opacity of the layer to suit.

or use the clone stamp set to lighten mode and around 20% opacity and just tap the area

Theres many ways to do this. The fastest and easiest way to do this is probably to use the healing tool. Set the source right below the area you want to fix and paint over the light part. Another way would be to add a new layer, set the mode to soft light and paint over the part thats too light with dark grey soft brush and then adjust the opacity of the layer.

Thanks all for your help, much appreciated!

The patch tool is made for this. Activate the patch tool, choose the "new selection" option, check "source", select area under eye, drag to area of good skin, and before deselecting go to Edit>Fade patch> and decrease opacity. You can click Ctrl+H to hide the marching ants if it helps deternining how much to fade. Don't forget to deselect at the end.

Ronny

rharris: wow that was so helpful and much easier than all the other methods...i can see me using this a lot not only for under the eyes but other parts of the face!!

thanks again