Chapter 7: Retouching and Restoring - Photoshop.CS.Bible [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 7: Retouching and Restoring

Four of the Best

Part II, we've looked at a host of editing disciplines — smearing and sponging, filling and stroking, and the powerful art of painting. Although most of these tools perform splendidly, they represent just the tip of the image-manipulation iceberg. And having melted that tip away, we come to the next strata in the pixel-based glacier, the retouchers — the stamp, healing tool, eraser, and history brush. Together with variations like the patch tool and art history brush, these remarkable tools permit you to repair damaged images, erase mistakes, and restore operations from your recent past. In short, they permit you to perform the sorts of miracles that simply weren't possible in the days before computer imaging, all without the slightest fear of damaging your artwork.

Very briefly, here's how each tool works:

Clone stamp and pattern stamp: Use the clone stamp to replicate pixels from one area in an image to another. This one feature makes the clone stamp ideally suited to removing dust, repairing minor defects, and eliminating distracting background elements. Alt-click (Option-click on the Mac) the clone stamp icon in the toolbox or press S or Shift+S to switch to the pattern stamp tool. This tool paints with a repeating image tile selected from Photoshop's library of predefined patterns or defined using Edit Define Pattern or Filter Pattern Maker.

Healing brush and patch tool: The healing brush is an expanded version of the clone stamp tool that merges texture detail from one portion of an image with color and brightness values from another. This permits you more flexibility when retouching imperfections, particularly when repairing tricky defects, such as scratches and wrinkles. Mouse down on the healing brush icon to display the flyout menu, or press J or Shift+J to switch to the patch tool, which allows you to repair entire selections at a time. Like the stamp tool, the healing brush and patch tool alternatively let you retouch with a pattern.

Figure 7-1: By using these tools and the History palette, you can retouch an image and restore portions to an earlier or even later state.

Eraser: When used in a single-layer image or on the background layer, the eraser paints in the background color. When applied to a layer, it erases pixels to reveal the layers below.

History brush and art history brush: The history brush selectively reverts to any of several states listed in the History palette. To select the source state that you want to paint with, click in the first column of the History palette. A brush icon identifies the source state, as illustrated by the Lasso item in Figure 7-1. If Photoshop displays a little "not-allowed" cursor when you try to use the history brush, it means you can't paint from the selected state. Click another state in the History palette and try again.

Alt-click on the history brush icon or press Y or Shift+Y to switch to the art history brush, which lets you apply impressionistic effects based on the active source state in the History palette. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a terribly useful tool, but it can be a lot of fun.

Obviously, these are but the skimpiest of introductions, every bit as stingy with information as a 19th-century headmaster might have been with his Christmas gruel and treacle. But fear not, my hungry one. This chapter doles out so many courses of meaty facts, fibrous techniques, and sweet, buttery insights that you'll need a whole box of toothpicks to dislodge the excess tips from your incisors.