# Heal tool



## magician john (Aug 9, 2015)

I have tried using the healing tool and often with good results. 
I have used it again and it just leaves a smudgy mark which only deals with lets say 50% of the item that I want to remove. The brush is set to 100%.
I don't think you can go over it again so how do I remove the area in my photo that I can't crop out but distracts from the damselfly that I have taken. The twig comes out from the bottom area around my photo.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 9, 2015)

Sounds like you want to remove something where switching from 'heal' to 'clone' would be better.


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## magician john (Aug 9, 2015)

Clone is no better, already tried it.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 9, 2015)

Clone should leave no smudges, although it can be difficult to find and good sampling area. Did you know you can correct Lightroom if the sampling area isn't good? You can select it and drag it to another place.


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## Hoggy (Aug 10, 2015)

magician john said:


> I don't think you can go over it again so how do I remove the area in my photo that I can't crop out but distracts from the damselfly that I have taken.



Actually, I have found that one _can_ go over it again - continuously...  By switching the Tool Overlay to 'None'.  I discovered that *very* useful tip by accident. 



JohanElzenga said:


> Did you know you can correct Lightroom if the sampling area isn't good? You can select it and drag it to another place.



As Johan says, you can do this - and you can also have Lightroom auto-select another area by pressing the '/' key.  You can do that many times, but note that it will randomly start re-selecting previous areas it had selected from.


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## magician john (Aug 10, 2015)

ok thanks will give the Tool overlay a try.


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## AndreasM (Aug 10, 2015)

If your picture is cropped, I would "uncrop" it temporarily and then use the *healing* brush over a longer part of the twig - if possible till the real border of the picture. Then crop again.

If that doesn't bring a good result I would use 2 steps:

1. Cover the twig with the *clone* brush (again - if cropped - first uncrop and then cover a bigger part of the twig)
2. Then use the *healing* brush to blend the cloned part with the background


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## pdxrjt (Aug 10, 2015)

When you say the "brush is set to 100%" do you mean both the flow and density?  If both are you should simply click on an area once and it will disappear.


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## magician john (Aug 10, 2015)

I have pasted my setting above.
Feather 78
Opacity 100


For AndreasM

Please clarify a bit more how I would blend the area using the Healing brush. 
p.s. I have been able to undo the crop and still both the Heal and Clone leave a smudgy mark rather than a clean area.


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## AndreasM (Aug 10, 2015)

Everything is better with pictures, so I'll try it this way:

(I never change Opacity and Feather on the healing/clone brush, so Opacity is 100 and Feather is 4 (don't know if that 4 is standard or an "accident"))

picture 1: unwanted object in the corner
2: Using the healing brush would create a smudgy mark
3: Instead I convert the healing brush to a clone brush (it copies the source area exactly, so it doesn't have the right brightness now)
4: I cover the clone brush with a healing brush to get a (mostly) smooth surface. (It has an irregular shape, because I have to paint it over with a smaller brush size, because I have to start on the outside of the first brush.)


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## magician john (Aug 10, 2015)

AndreasM,

Thanks that is great.
I am having a bit of a brain issue here, what do you load the healing brush with in 4 and how do you carry it out?


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## AndreasM (Aug 10, 2015)

Sorry, now it's me, who doesn't quite understand. What do you mean with "loading the healing brush"?

I will try to rephrase it:

In 3 I use a clone brush to get rid of the dark branch first.

In 4 I do the same for a second time, with 2 differences:
- this time it's a healing brush
- one can't click with the center of the brush on top of another brush (because the mouse pointer changes to "moving mode" for the first brush), so I reduce the brush size and click just outside of the first brush area, hold the mouse button and continue painting over the entire area of the first brush (and a bit more).


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 10, 2015)

AndreasM said:


> Sorry, now it's me, who doesn't quite understand. What do you mean with "loading the healing brush"?
> 
> I will try to rephrase it:
> 
> ...



As 'Hoggy' already said in am earlier post, you *can* clone or heal several times over the same area without the brush going into 'moving mode'. Just temporarily set the Overlay (in the lower left corner underneath the image) to 'Never'.

An alternative method is to clone or heal an area close by. Then move the target area to the desired location by dragging it.


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## AndreasM (Aug 10, 2015)

Thanks Johan,

changing Overlay to "Never" only removes the circles, but doesn't change the behaviour of the mouse pointer. (at least in my Lr version)

Your second suggestion works fine, though.


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## Hoggy (Aug 11, 2015)

AndreasM said:


> changing Overlay to "Never" only removes the circles, but doesn't change the behaviour of the mouse pointer. (at least in my Lr version)



Hm..  They must have altered the behavior for LR6 then..  I just double-checked and it does work in the current 6.x line.  I thought for sure I would've fount that out back in 5.x by now, but then again my memory is for crap these days. 

Anyhow it should work for the OP then, if both left-pane info about your respective versions are correct.


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## magician john (Aug 11, 2015)

Thanks for all your help and ideas.
Have been able to go over the area with a heal from outside the area and remove some more of the branch. Not perfectly, but much improved and used the Never in the Overlay option and removed a bit more, although this is strange that you don't seem to get a choice in the area it is being painted from.
So whilst not the complete answer, it is much much better and at least I am satisfied with the outcome and don't have that light branch distracting from my Common Emerald damselfly anymore.
well done and appreciate all your input.
john


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## Hoggy (Aug 11, 2015)

magician john said:


> and used the Never in the Overlay option and removed a bit more, although this is strange that you don't seem to get a choice in the area it is being painted from.



You'd only be likely to get a choice if you turned the overlay back on right after the one you want to alter (choose 'selected' overlay to make sure).  If you want to alter another previous one though, you might not have such luck selecting the particular one out of the hodgepodge of edit pins (and corresponding areas they cover) that now show.   Of course the auto re-select by pressing '/' will still work, as will the Delete key for the most recent adjustment.



> So whilst not the complete answer, it is much much better and at least I am satisfied with the outcome



Yeah..  PS may be the better bet in some cases, but then one loses the raw qualities to fully edit without some sort of repercussions.


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## pdxrjt (Aug 11, 2015)

What did you say your flow rate was? (not feather)


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## Ian.B (Aug 12, 2015)

Hoggy said:


> Actually, I have found that one _can_ go over it again - continuously...  By switching the Tool _Overlay to 'None'._  I discovered that *very* useful tip by accident.


 now you have me wondering; is that a LR6/cc thing? 



Hoggy said:


> As Johan says, you can do this - and you can also have Lightroom  auto-select another area by _pressing the '/' key_. .


 Thanks; that's a new one for me; I  drag the button to suit

I have found it hard at times to  remove foliage from sky area; both blue and cloudy. Blue sky can be particular hard at times; that's when I slip over PS with it's better tools


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## Hoggy (Aug 12, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> now you have me wondering; is that a LR6/cc thing?



I'm wondering too..
I think it might just be..  I discovered it a while ago.  I thought maybe from during the 5.x series, but it doesn't seem to work for AndreasM whom lists 5.x in the left-side-info.  Yet it does work for the OP whom lists 6.x.  If it doesn't work for your 5.x either, then it's got to be a 6.x series thing.


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## Hoggy (Aug 12, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> I have found it hard at times to  remove foliage from sky area; both blue and cloudy. Blue sky can be particular hard at times; that's when I slip over PS with it's better tools



I also have problems with electric/phone poles over sky area..  I try very hard to do it all in LR though, since I notice a somewhat quality hit when going to TIFF - not to mention the loss of dealing with the raw data and non-destructive adjustments.  Yeah, PS has potential to be somewhat non-destructive too, but then you're dealing with 2 different copies in LR, on top of a TIFF/PSD quality hit (IMO) likely due to baking in white balance and color space..  Even at 16 bpc ProPhoto (using wide-gamut aftermarket/3rd-party LCD panel in this 17-inch laptop).

Very unfortunately there is still a need for PS sometimes, for the difficult removals. :-/   I hope in time, LR will gain better/more tools to help, so I can stay in non-destructive raw.


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## Ian.B (Aug 12, 2015)

cheers hoggy; certainly not in my lr5 and I'm not rushing into LR/cc so no point asking what it does


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## Ian.B (Aug 13, 2015)

Hoggy said:


> I also have problems with electric/phone poles over sky area..  I try very hard to do it all in LR though, since I notice a somewhat quality hit when going to TIFF - not to mention the loss of dealing with the raw data and non-destructive adjustments.  Yeah, PS has potential to be somewhat non-destructive too, but then you're dealing with 2 different copies in LR, on top of a TIFF/PSD quality hit (IMO) likely due to baking in white balance and color space..  Even at 16 bpc ProPhoto (using wide-gamut aftermarket/3rd-party LCD panel in this 17-inch laptop).
> 
> Very unfortunately there is still a need for PS sometimes, for the difficult removals. :-/   I hope in time, LR will gain better/more tools to help, so I can stay in non-destructive raw.



Sometimes I feel we worry just a bit too much about file quality/loss of quality these days and many  of those worries go back to the early days digital photograph and edit tools


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## Hoggy (Aug 13, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> Sometimes I feel we worry just a bit too much about file quality/loss of quality these days and many  of those worries go back to the early days digital photograph and edit tools



I never dealt with photo editing until 2012 when I discovered LR (and therefore organization! :hail: ), which is more akin to literally 'developing' a photo than true editing - especially considering a raw that hasn't had any processing applied at all.
A big part of it though, IMO, is the PITA of having 2 files in LR, even with things like stacking - and then the even bigger issue of wanting to make new develop edits to the raw file.  It would be much better if LR allowed one to send images to PS as a LINKed smart object pointing to the original raw - then at least that second part would be covered.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 13, 2015)

Hoggy said:


> I never dealt with photo editing until 2012 when I discovered LR (and therefore organization! :hail: ), which is more akin to literally 'developing' a photo than true editing - especially considering a raw that hasn't had any processing applied at all.
> A big part of it though, IMO, is the PITA of having 2 files in LR, even with things like stacking - and then the even bigger issue of wanting to make new develop edits to the raw file.  It would be much better if LR allowed one to send images to PS as a LINKed smart object pointing to the original raw - then at least that second part would be covered.



Actually, you can do that although it still doesn't mean the Photoshop file will be _automatically_ updated when you adjust the raw file in Lightroom. You have to load the file in Photoshop again and update the linked raw file from there.

Anyway, this is how to do it. It works with DNG, I never tried it with a proprietary raw file. Open the raw file as smart object in Photoshop. In Photoshop, choose to save the smart object as linked file. You'll get a 'Save as' dialog asking you to save the embedded raw file. Navigate to the folder where the original raw file resides and click Save. You will be asked if you want to overwrite the existing raw file. Say *Yes*. Lightroom won't notice that the original raw file was overwritten by the linked smart object (which is identical so it doesn't matter), so the saved linked object is now the same as what Lightroom considers being the original raw file. Remember that you have to use 'Save metadata to file' after you've made new adjustments in Lightroom and before updating the link, otherwise your latest Lightroom adjustments don't carry over.


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## magician john (Aug 9, 2015)

I have tried using the healing tool and often with good results. 
I have used it again and it just leaves a smudgy mark which only deals with lets say 50% of the item that I want to remove. The brush is set to 100%.
I don't think you can go over it again so how do I remove the area in my photo that I can't crop out but distracts from the damselfly that I have taken. The twig comes out from the bottom area around my photo.


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## Hoggy (Aug 14, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> Anyway, this is how to do it. It works with DNG, I never tried it with a proprietary raw file. Open the raw file as smart object in Photoshop. In Photoshop, choose to save the smart object as linked file. You'll get a 'Save as' dialog asking you to save the embedded raw file. Navigate to the folder where the original raw file resides and click Save. You will be asked if you want to overwrite the existing raw file. Say *Yes*. Lightroom won't notice that the original raw file was overwritten by the linked smart object (which is identical so it doesn't matter), so the saved linked object is now the same as what Lightroom considers being the original raw file.



(I think you might mean 'Convert to Linked', in the properties panel of the SO layer??)
I have tried that before, but was afraid to overwrite the original DNG most times.  Are you *sure* it is identical - AND won't cause any issues regarding saving metadata, keywords OR develop settings?   ...  Of course doing the 'save metadata' in LR, which I do after every session anyways (wish there was a script to do that, rather than doing the switch to smart collection, ctrl-a, ctrl-s shuffle every time).

I thought there was one time where the filesize turned out to be different, but just tried it with a junker image file, and it DID turn out to be the exact same size, down to the byte..  So maybe it really IS identical..??

...  And are there any special setting that should be used regarding the Camera Raw preferences?  Especially for the 'Save image settings in' - database or sidecar.  (Solely using DNG here.)  It would be nice if one could alter the file in cam-raw and do a 'read metadata' in LR to share develop settings and snapshots both ways - rather than strictly _from_ LR _to_ cam-raw/PS.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 14, 2015)

Yeah, I wrote it on my iPad with no option to check the exact text of the dialogs. I am as sure as I can be, which is of course not 100%. The file you just sent to Photoshop and which you now use to overwrite the original, _is_ (a copy of) the original.

In Camera RAW you should use 'Save image settings in sidecar files', so that any changes you make in ACR end up in the linked object and not in a database that Lightroom doesn't access. Then in Lightroom you have to use 'Read metadata from file' to get those changes.

If you are afraid that the images may be different, you could also save the linked object with a slightly different name and then use Synchronize folder to import it in Lightroom. Then you can check first if everything is OK, and if you find no problems you can delete the original in order not to have three copies.

One final remark: You have to think about how practical this really is. As demonstrated it can be done, but whether it is practical and not prone to making mistakes, is quite another matter.


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## camner (Aug 16, 2015)

Ian.B said:


> now you have me wondering; is that a LR6/cc thing?



I'm pretty sure that this is, indeed, a LR6/CC thing.  In LR 5 and LR 4 I found it impossible to use the clone/heal tool on a spot that already had a cloned/healed area. In LR 6/CC it can be done if Tool Overlay is off.


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## Ian.B (Aug 17, 2015)

camner said:


> I'm pretty sure that this is, indeed, a LR6/CC thing.  In LR 5 and LR 4 I found it _impossible to use the clone/heal tool on a spot that already had a cloned/healed area_. In LR 6/CC it can be done if Tool Overlay is off.


Thanks for the info. Something else to look forward too when I get game enough to get CC or 6

This was all done in LR 5 :shock: lol






​I was having big computer dramas at the time (actually LR dramas ) and I hadn't re-installed PS, so just for fun I gave it a go to see what could be done with the then new improved spot removal tool. It was for a mate too BTW; but I do like those side by sides


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 17, 2015)

Why didn't you remove the shadows (of those things that you removed) as well, Ian?


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## davidedric (Aug 17, 2015)

> I'm pretty sure that this is, indeed, a LR6/CC thing. In LR 5 and LR 4 I found it impossible to use the clone/heal tool on a spot that already had a cloned/healed area. In LR 6/CC it can be done if Tool Overlay is off.



Thanks for that.  I had struggled with this in 4 and 5, and pretty much given up.  Never thought to have another go in 6!

Dave


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## Ian.B (Aug 17, 2015)

Jim Wilde said:


> Why didn't you remove the shadows (of those things that you removed) as well, Ian?



just too lazy Jim lol


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