Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
WORKAROUND WORKSHOP: REPAIRING TEARS AND STAINS
With Elements, you can do a lot to bring damaged photos back to life. The Content-Aware Fill
command, the Healing Brush, and the Clone Stamp are major players when it comes to restoring
pictures. It's fiddly work that requires persistence, but you can achieve wonders if you have the
patience.
If you're lucky and large parts of your photo are in good shape, you can use the Content-Aware
Move tool to copy the good bits into the problem area, as explained on
The Content-Aware Move
Tool
.
It helps to create a new layer before using this tool, so that you can easily reposition, rotate,
or resize the copy. If you don't, Photoshop merges the new material right into the existing layer as
soon as you release your mouse button.
If you need a mirror image of something, you can use the Rotate commands to flip a selection.
For example, if the left leg of a chair is fine but the right one is missing, try selecting and Alt-
dragging/Option-dragging the left leg with the Move tool. When it's where you want it, go to
Image→Rotate→Flip Selection Horizontal to turn the copied left leg into a new right leg.
If you don't need to rotate an object, sometimes you can just increase the Clone Stamp's brush
size and then clone the object where you need a duplicate. However, this technique works well
only when the background is the same in both areas.
Applying Patterns
In addition to solid colors, Elements also lets you add patterns to images. Patterns let you add
interesting designs to images or give more realistic textures to certain repairs. Elements
comes with several built-in patterns, and you can download more (see
Stuff from the Inter-
You can apply patterns with the Healing Brush or the Pattern Stamp. As you learned earlier,
the Healing Brush has a pattern setting in its Tool Options area. The Pattern Stamp shares a
Tools panel slot with the Clone Stamp, and it works much like the Clone Stamp but puts
down a preselected pattern instead of a sampled area. The tool you use to apply the pattern
makes a big difference, as you can see from
Figure 9-9
. The next two sections explain how to
use them both.
