Another question...the healing brush.

[kneff]

I watched the video of Feature Enhancing by Jack Davis several times and took notes. I did learn alot from this, but somewhere, I 'm not working the healing brush correct. I want to use it to take out a mark that shouldn't be on the photo. So, as he says, I don't have the aligned clicked so it isn't suppose to clone. But, mine is still like cloning, instead erasing things like stray hairs, blemishes, etc. I pushed alt and click on the photo that is near the color I want, but when I go to erase, it clones instead. I hope all this makes sense.

[DaveS]

Hi Kneff,
I just watched the tutorial to see if I could see where you were going wrong. The healing brush tool is like a cloning tool but it samples from a source using colour and texture and matches the texture of the destination. If you do not click the aligned button when you alt-click on a source every time you paint on a destination the source will stay the same until you resample. If you tick the aligned, when you paint on your destination the distance between your two points will remain constant where-ever you paint until you resample. If the result is not what you want just undo and resample til you get the effect that you want but don't forget to duplicate you image first.
I hope this helps I'm not an expert with the healing brush but have found that short stroke and multilpe sampling usually gets the job done.

Dave

[kneff]

Thats my problem. I don't have the aligned button clicked and it is still cloning. I alt-click on skin texture then use the brush to paint and I still get an X instead of like a stopwatch thingy (thats what it looked like on the video). What else could I be doing wrong?

[roger_ele]

It is a clone tool - it clones the texture and uses the color info and lightness info from around the area that you brush. The reason to uncheck the aligned is so that you are painting with the same texture each palce you click - it is quicker and you don't have to keep reselecting your source point as you move around an area of all of the same texture - like skin. The source point does not need to be the same brightness as the target point where you brush like the clone tool does. Try alt-clicking a source point that is completely different to play with it and it will make more sense.

The only time this acts different is when you are near an edge of high contrast, you will pull some of the brightness and color from the other area. To work around this pretend it is a clone tool and select your source point at the same distance from the contrasting edge as the target point.

Good Luck,
Roger

[roger_ele]

Sorry Kneff, I just reread your post - the X or stopwatch thingy ...

I don't know which X, but I will guess that it is the mouse healing brush curser (I don't know if these are the right words - but the mouse should look like this when it is ready to paint with the healing brush - or any brush). The stopwatch thingy is 'I am thinking". If your computer is fast it may finish before the stopwatch can come on. To test if it is doing anything open the history window and see if a healing brush history step is creatied when you use the healing brush.

[DaveS]

Could sthe stop-watch be a Mac thing as most of these pros tend to use a mac system, only a thought.

Dave