Retouching Linear Blemishes

For years the only tool we had for retouching linear blemishes was the Clone Stamp tool. And you will still find this tool useful on occasion, as you will see later in the “Removing Stray Hairs and Wrinkles” sidebar. One of the chronic problems with using the Clone Stamp tool for retouching was that it did not do a very good job protecting the luminance values and texture of the skin. The Healing Brush tools were designed with this as one of their key strengths. Let’s see just how good these tools are. As you saw in the earlier image, Hope has been delightedly playing in the dirt and has a very cute dirty face and hands. Hope’s parents have decided to use this image as their current family portrait. They would like to clean up the image a bit—but not too much.

We will start by zooming in on some of the linear red blemishes on the (viewing) right side of her face. For linear blemishes, the tool of choice is the Healing Brush tool. The Healing Brush and the Spot Healing Brush look similar, but the Spot Healing Brush has a small selection area added to the end of its icon. You can access this tool through the Tools palette, or by pressing J until the Healing Brush is active.

Through the Healing Brush options in the Options palette, we will configure the Healing Brush as follows:
Mode Normal.
Source Sampled.
Brush Size Slightly larger than the width of the linear blemish, here = 25 pixels.
Hardness Normally 100% (50% here) (remember, you can Control+click on the Mac or right-click anywhere in the image to display the Brushes Preset Picker and change this setting).
Typically a hard-edged brush is recommended and used when working with the Healing Brush. This is because the Healing Brush tools are automatically designed to soften/smooth edges. You may encounter circumstances, along high contrast edges or with inconsistent backgrounds, where using a hard-edged brush may create a recognizable halo or edge, in which case you can lower the hardness as we have here.

You have the choice of several Healing Brush blending modes. The other mode that I find useful for working with skin tones is the Luminance mode. If you are not achieving good results in Normal mode, try switching to Luminance mode. Normally, one of the key features of using the Healing Brush tools is the maintenance of the underlying tonal values, In most cases the Normal mode will provide good results, but in some cases, such as when there is a large difference in background luminance or tonal values, choosing Luminance may produce better results.

Before you begin your retouching, consider making a duplicate of the image layer and renaming it Retouch. This allows you to isolate your retouching adjustments to their own layer.

Now, making sure we have activated the Retouch layer in the Layers palette (not the adjustment layer), Option/Alt+click a skin tone area that is similar to the skin tone surrounding the linear blemish. Doing so determines the Healing Brush clone source starting point. Then move the Healing Brush over one end of the blemish and drag along the length of it. After a brief discoloration, the blemish disappears. Repeat this process on some of the moreaggressive linear blemishes. Leave some of the less-obvious ones alone—they add character!