Advice needed on using Healing Tool

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:34:25 +0100, Nige
wrote:

Can someone tell me how I can prevent the Healing Brush tool producing a much darker or lighter area when it gets close to an edge where there’s a major change in tonal lightness?

I’m aware of the measures you’re supposed to take to avoid this – such as limiting the area you’re working on by making a selection – but I still seem to get a darker or lighter patch as soon as I move close to an edge even though the area is ‘isolated’ by a selection.
Is this something I’m doing wrong – or is it just a question of altering certain parameters (feathering for example?). I’ve looked for answers to this in countless books – but all of them seem to insist the problem can be overcome simply by selection.

TIA,

Nige

What I do is to make the Healing brush as small as I can and still be useful, then you need to make the copy "from" location line up with the copy"to" location. In other words, it’s the same as if you’re trying to use the clone tool. With the clone tool, if you need to clone to a location that has a seam in the middle of it, then you would locate the clone "from" spot in the exact center of the seam. Once you have the clone "from" spot, then you would have to place the clone "to" spot in the exact center of the seam, only a little distance from the clone "from" spot.
You need to do the same thing with the healing brush. If you are near an edge, then you have to place the copy "from" crosshairs exactly over the middle of the edge. Then place the copy "to" crosshairs over the exact center of the edge where you want to make the change to.
You need to keep the two sets of crosshairs lined up. You might have to play around with the size of the brush in order to keep it from sampling too much and adding colors you don’t want.

Talker

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:57:21 -0500, Talker wrote:

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:34:25 +0100, Nige
wrote:

Can someone tell me how I can prevent the Healing Brush tool producing a much darker or lighter area when it gets close to an edge where there’s a major change in tonal lightness?

I’m aware of the measures you’re supposed to take to avoid this – such as limiting the area you’re working on by making a selection – but I still seem to get a darker or lighter patch as soon as I move close to an edge even though the area is ‘isolated’ by a selection.
Is this something I’m doing wrong – or is it just a question of altering certain parameters (feathering for example?). I’ve looked for answers to this in countless books – but all of them seem to insist the problem can be overcome simply by selection.

TIA,

Nige

What I do is to make the Healing brush as small as I can and still be useful, then you need to make the copy "from" location line up with the copy"to" location. In other words, it’s the same as if you’re trying to use the clone tool. With the clone tool, if you need to clone to a location that has a seam in the middle of it, then you would locate the clone "from" spot in the exact center of the seam. Once you have the clone "from" spot, then you would have to place the clone "to" spot in the exact center of the seam, only a little distance from the clone "from" spot.
You need to do the same thing with the healing brush. If you are near an edge, then you have to place the copy "from" crosshairs exactly over the middle of the edge. Then place the copy "to" crosshairs over the exact center of the edge where you want to make the change to.
You need to keep the two sets of crosshairs lined up. You might have to play around with the size of the brush in order to keep it from sampling too much and adding colors you don’t want.
Talker

and adding to what Talker said, be careful not to use the healing brush where the clone tool can do the work.

Nige wrote:

Can someone tell me how I can prevent the Healing Brush tool producing a much darker or lighter area when it gets close to an edge where there’s a major change in tonal lightness?

I’m aware of the measures you’re supposed to take to avoid this – such as limiting the area you’re working on by making a selection – but I still seem to get a darker or lighter patch as soon as I move close to an edge even though the area is ‘isolated’ by a selection.
Is this something I’m doing wrong – or is it just a question of altering certain parameters (feathering for example?). I’ve looked for answers to this in countless books – but all of them seem to insist the problem can be overcome simply by selection.

I use the Healing option’s now and then but haven’t studied it/them close enough to have more detail to share. But to me they work similar to CLONE tool, and you may get a different result depending on the image and between "Healing Brush" and "Healing Path". I think I use Healing Path more often.

TIA,

Nige

Thanks – that seems to make sense, though on a large area, it sounds like it could take quite a while. And I still don’t understand why you can’t isolate the area by making a selection so that the healing tool is not ‘seeing’ anything on the other side of the edge. In most other aspects of Photoshop, making a selection in this way would prevent anything outside the selection having any effect on what you’re doing inside.

Nige

What I do is to make the Healing brush as small as I can and still be useful, then you need to make the copy "from" location line up with the copy"to" location. In other words, it’s the same as if you’re trying to use the clone tool. With the clone tool, if you need to clone to a location that has a seam in the middle of it, then you would locate the clone "from" spot in the exact center of the seam. Once you have the clone "from" spot, then you would have to place the clone "to" spot in the exact center of the seam, only a little distance from the clone "from" spot.
You need to do the same thing with the healing brush. If you are near an edge, then you have to place the copy "from" crosshairs exactly over the middle of the edge. Then place the copy "to" crosshairs over the exact center of the edge where you want to make the change to.
You need to keep the two sets of crosshairs lined up. You might have to play around with the size of the brush in order to keep it from sampling too much and adding colors you don’t want.
Talker