Photoshop: Finishing Up With The Healing Brush

Mehmet Met Dilsiz, of FND Photography made this comment on my Photoshop: Removing A Vechicle With The Clone Stamp

Create another layer and fill it up with one color. (doesn't matter which color but I usually use white).  And the use the HEAL tool.  Select the new layer and the use your ALT-CLICK to set the reference area on the new layer.  And then go over the driveway, this should make the colors on the driveway a little more harmonized...

This is such a good tip, I wanted to try it out. 

Mehmet, please let me know if I haven't followed quite correctly!

This image is where I finished off at the end of my post:

The image has been "flattened" into .jpg file format.  So, the first thing I'll do is create a background copy layer.  Hit Layer -> Duplicate Layer.  Default layer name will be "Background copy".  Click OK.  My main reason for doing this is ... the original background layer always sits at the bottom of the layer stack.  I'm going to want to move this "Background copy" layer up to the top before I'm done.

Now, I'll create another new layer.  Thhis time I'll hit Layer -> New Fill Layer -> Solid Color.  The default layer name will be "Clor Fill 1"  Click OK.

The Color Picker will open up.  Choose White.  Either by clicking on the white color square, or by typing the the letters FFFFFF in the color # box.

When I click OK, the new layer will fill with White.  But because the new fill layer is is sitting on top of the stack in the layer palette, the whole image is now covered with white.

Now you can see the reason for creating the "Background copy" layer.  In the layer palette, click on the "Background copy" layer and drag it to the top of the stack.

With the "Background copy" layer in place at the top, re-select the "Color Fill 1" layer.  Don't change its position in the stack.  Just select it.  When a layer is selected, its name is highlighted in blue.

Now click on the Healing Brush Tool.

I chose a fairly large diameter brush (26 px) with very soft edges (4% hardness).  Note the higher the number on the Hardness slider, the sharper the edges.  Be sure to check "Sample All Layers".

Hold down the ALT key and click somewhere in the driveway.  Release the ALT Key.  The cursor changes to a larger diameter circle.  Begin dragging over the entire driveway.  Release the cursor, and the healing will take place.

As you work, don't forget the Undo History palette.  If you don't like the result, or you dragged a little too far, just hit Window -> Undo History.  Scroll to the last (newest) action in the history list, and click the items, one by one, moving up the list, to undo them.

Photoshop saves images with multiple layers as .PSD files.  Once you are finished with all the healing tweaks, you will need to "flatten" the image to save it as a .JPG file that can be used on the web.   Hit Layer -> Flatten Image

Then you can hit File -> Save for Web to convert the file to >JPG format, and to compress it's file size.