Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

[CKAJCA]

I am getting artifacting or pixelation (that is the best I can decribe it) when using the healing brush on skin. What am I doing wrong? Forgot to say I am using CS5!

Colin

[insmac]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

Sample new areas more frequently, as I can imagine this might be the case. Ergo, use smaller brush sizes. Darken/Lighten brush mode work well too

[vdsq]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

I use to create a new layer then merge with previous layer when i`m done.

[CKAJCA]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

Thank you, I will try the things that have been suggested :-)

[tlooknbill]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

I just started using the Spot Healing Brush on a restoration project and I'm not sure if the artifacts shown are the result of this brush or if the file is becoming corrupt. See the attached image.

Thanks for the help.

Also these color rainbow artifacts don't show up until after I save, close the file and reopen the image in Photoshop.

[kav]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

First if you're having artifact issues you can just rebuild the area rather than using the brush. It really doesn't take very long. As for the rainbow thing, jpeg artifacts or preview errors. View at 100% and save as tiff.

[tlooknbill]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

kav, thanks for responding.

That is not a screengrab of a jpeg but of a tiff file as it appears in Photoshop viewed at 200% (to show what I'm talking about). These artifacts show at all zoom levels. IOW it's in the tiff file.

I know I can fix it using another tool, but I'm asking what's causing this when using the SHB tool. First time using the Spot Healing Brush and just want to rule out file corruption which I'm having to assume due to the fact these artifacts only show up after saving, closing and then reopening the tiff image.

Wondering if it could be due to my using soft edge SHB tool brush. I guess I'll have to test.

[tlooknbill]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

Correction.

Just tested this and found the color artifacts crop up right after applying the SHB tool (set to "Create Texture") whether I use soft brush set to 50% or hard brush at 100% and even increasing Spacing to 10.

I don't need to save, close and reopen the tiff file. At least I ruled out file corruption.

The suggestion of applying these edits on a layer seemed to work the best and noticeably reduced the rainbow color artifacts by additionally setting layer blending to 50% opacity. There's still faint red/green artifacts popping up. This happens mostly using "Create Texture" SHB button selected. "Proximity Match" selected gets rid of all of it.

Now I know what I need to do.

[kav]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

kav, thanks for responding.

That is not a screengrab of a jpeg but of a tiff file as it appears in Photoshop viewed at 200% (to show what I'm talking about). These artifacts show at all zoom levels. IOW it's in the tiff file.

I know I can fix it using another tool, but I'm asking what's causing this when using the SHB tool. First time using the Spot Healing Brush and just want to rule out file corruption which I'm having to assume due to the fact these artifacts only show up after saving, closing and then reopening the tiff image.

Wondering if it could be due to my using soft edge SHB tool brush. I guess I'll have to test.

I'm really not sure. File corruption doesn't look like what you posted anyway. If it was a case of file corruption which can also be caused by corruption in scratch disk space, you'd most likely see solid colored artifacts in the form of lines. I've seen a couple people make really good use of the healing brush tools, but I rarely ever touch them. I think seeing people misuse them since they debuted (and their initial painfully slow speed back in the days of photoshop 7) killed my interest there. For the stuff you linked, rebuilding would most likely produce superior results in less time than you're spending agonizing over this .

[tlooknbill]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

Don't know what gives you the idea I'm agonizing over this. It's a simple investigatory question to find out if this is normal behavior since it's the first I've seen this happen using any Photoshop tool.

But it doesn't matter anyway because I already found the solution and the cause on my own.

Thanks.

[suryapuranik]

Re: Artifacts/pixelation with Healing Brush?

Seeing the thumbnail you have sent it seems the image has got coloured noise and while using healing brush this noise is making such artifacts. Please try these steps:
1. Desaturate the layer
2. Do healing on this layer
3. After you have finished healing, use "Hue Saturation" to get the sepia tone which was previously there.
Good luck!