Adobe Photoshop, 2nd Edition, 2nd Edition

Tools & Methods

As we focus on the tools in Photoshop proper, know that there are tools in Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom as well. See “Spot Removal Tool: Removing Blemishes” (page 368) for more on those.

All methods involve using “good” bits of imagery to replace or, better, obscure the bad. I say “better” because we sometimes change our minds or catch mistakes late in the game. Working nondestructively, we can remove the imagery we used to cover what we deemed flaws. To do so usually means creating a layer to hold the good stuff, and configuring each tool to sample from all the layers we see, rather than just the active one. Content-Aware Fill can create a layer on the fly. Some methods, sadly, can’t use empty layers, and so we have to find ...