Digital Photo Touch Ups

In this video, Michelle shows you how to remove unwanted features, like spots on a face, that could distract from the quality of your photos.

After selecting this photo for a layout, I’ve noticed that my son has quite a bit of food still on his face, typical for a small child the age of two. So, I think I will get rid of a little bit of it. It’s a little distracting.

Use the clone tool, which looks like this little rubber stamp. Click on that, it’s will show what my brush size is. I’m going to go quite a bit smaller, because I really don’t want to capture too many pixels at once.
Select the "Alt" key, (That’s "Option" on a Mac). You’re going to see this little target pop up, whatever you click that on are the pixels that it will pick up.

When I click over on the area that I want to cover, it will grab the pixels from to the left and move them right over the area that I’m using my brush tool on. This can be a little tricky, especially with a lot of skin tones. You want to pick something that’s looks very close to the area that you want to correct, Otherwise, it could look a little funny.

If you’re having difficulty, adjusting the opacity is always an option. You will just have to go over it a couple times. I’m going to get a couple of these little spots on his face cleaned up. Maybe I will get rid of some of the highlights on his face from little-boy drool too, just to soften it a bit.

When using the clone tool, I recommend being very delicate with it. Do little bits at a time. Don’t try to cover a whole area with one mouse click. Otherwise, you will get some really strange results.