Healing brush tool

In the beginning I found Photoshop and it's limitless possibilities a bit overwhelming. But, the more I practised, the more I got in to it, the more I started to love it. Practise makes perfect they say. I'm not claiming that I'm anywhere near perfection, but I do know a heck of a lot more than way back. How did I get to this point? I practised, I watched lots of Youtube clips and tutorials from fellow photographers. And practise some more. 

Take for example the spot healing brush. What does it do and how does it work? 

The spot healing brush is the default healing tool in Photoshop and can be used to clone areas from an image and blend the pixels from the sampled area seamlessly with the target area. The basic principle is that the texture from the sample area is blended with the color and luminosity surrounding wherever you paint. The main difference between this and the standard healing brush is that the spot healing brush requires no source point. 

source: http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/

I worked with the spot healing brush tool before. I quite liked working with it, however I wondered if there was a tool a bit more accurate. The spot healing brush tool works out the source point itself, but I wanted to be the one in control of the source point. 

After watching this movie from Tutvid, I discovered the healing brush tool. Cue: practise time! 

I practised with a picture I downloaded from Pixabay:

 

The healing brush can be found with the J keyboard shortcut or in the Tools menu

The principle of the healing brush is actually very simple: find a pimple or blemish and sample a piece of skin thats fits well (preferably close to the spot) and simply paint over the spot you want to 'heal'. That's it! 

I prefer to keep it natural though. Not go over the top. 

And you guys probably know by now that I wasn't done after that. I sharpened the image with the use of a high pass filter and made the cap a bit more colourful. And this was the result of my practising the healing brush tool: 

Sometime over the next week I'll be posting a follow-up on this post. I'll be working with this picture and show you how dodge and burn can improve this picture even further. 

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