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Chapter 15 Digital Darkroom Basics
A similar tool that is particularly useful
when cleaning up defects on human subjects is
the
Spot Healing
brush tool, Figure 15-43. Like the
Clone
stamp tool, it copies a selected sample and
places it over the defect to be removed. Instead
Figure 15-41. Spotting is done with the image dis-
played at 100 percent (note the percentage next to the
filename at the top of the image display) to make defects
visible. Only a portion of the image can be shown on the
display at one time. The small, bright white spots that
are visible are dust spots that must be eliminated by
cloning.
Figure 15-43. The
Spot Healing
brush is ideal for
repairing small skin defects on portrait subjects. It
works like the
Clone Stamp
tool, but blends pixels rather
than merely copying them from the sampled area. The
result is a smoother repair.
Eliminating a Spot Using the
Clone Stamp Tool
1. Position the cursor (brush-size circle) on an area near
the spot to be removed. The area should be as close
as possible in appearance to the spot’s immediate sur-
roundings. This will make the “cover-up” less obvious.
2. Hold down the ALT key (Option on an Apple com-
puter) and click with the left mouse button. This
selects the image pixels that will be copied. Release
the ALT key.
3. Reposition the cursor over the spot and press the
left mouse button. The spot will be covered with the
image information (pixels) you selected in step 2.
If the spot is larger than the brush size, move the
cursor and press the left mouse button again.
Continue moving and clicking until the spot is
eliminated. See
Figure 15-42.
4. Larger areas can be covered by clicking and dragging
(using the tool as a paintbrush), but the results are
often an unsatisfactory patterned appearance. Moving
and clicking to cover the defect with a series of smaller
cloned spots gives better results.
Figure 15-42. Size and position of the brush selected
for the work is indicated by the small black circle
visible at the large white spot to the right of the boy’s
head. After selecting an area from which to clone
image information, the brush circle is placed over
the spot. A mouse click will copy the selected image
over the white spot. For very large spots, the action is
repeated several times.