Help with spot removal

Maver!ck

Maver!ck

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Name
Lionel
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I would consider my self reasonably well practiced at simple blemish removal but this one is causing me some difficulties and would appreciate any suggestions. The problem is the spot lies right in the transition area between light and shadow and no matter what I do I can't seem to make it look like it hasn't been worked on. Tried all the usual methods from the spot healing brush tool to the healing brush too and standard cloning, etc. Have even tried Aaron Nace's frequency seperation (i know it's not his but you know what I mean!). It falls in a similar difficult area on a series of shots and I would like to use at least one of them!


spot by Maver!ck on Talk Photography
 
Spot healing brush in CS5, did the 3 spots on her neck too

5YVNRFz.jpg
 
Thanks Jim and I don't wish to be ungrateful but i can still see it! it's the one on her chin that is causing the diffs.
 
You have no editing of images on your profile so i'll ask first, are you happy for me to have a go and if it work explain what i did?
 
Sharky, better but, (and sorry if I'm being too picky) the light shade transition still isn't right. That's about roughly what I was achieving (at best).
o_O
 
Maver!ck said:
Sharky, better but, (and sorry if I'm being too picky) the light shade transition still isn't right. That's about roughly what I was achieving (at best).
o_O
Click to expand...
The problem (in my eyes) is twofold, you know the spot was there so it's hard to not see it after editing. A fresh pair of eyes would 99% of the time never guess. The second issue is the light transition was never really there to start with. In my edit (frq separation + clone stamp + some g.blur) its texture has been worked on not the overall colour and transition of light to dark. So for a better overall result you'd have to brush in or clone in some transitional shadow that isn't there in camera. It could also do with a hint of the redness being taken out but no pen / tablet with me at the moment so limited to the edit as is.
 
My humble effort.

Open in PS.
Copy layer.
Make a selection of the lighter good area to the left of the spot, make a slight feather.
Copy and paste into a new layer.
Open free transform, move a little and stretch the new layer over the problem area.
Add a layer mask to the new layer and with a low opacity brush blend the edges in.
Adjust the opacity of the layer to suit.
Flatten, clean up with the spot healing tool.
New layer, fill with 50% grey, change blending mode to Overlay or soft light, then with the foreground colour set to white and with a soft low value round brush paint over the light to dark areas to soften the join.
Flatten.
Done.

9924-1422632108-1aba6e132439553b43d713ef98aef982.jpg


Rhodese.
 
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Sharky said:
The problem (in my eyes) is twofold, you know the spot was there so it's hard to not see it after editing. A fresh pair of eyes would 99% of the time never guess. The second issue is the light transition was never really there to start with. In my edit (frq separation + clone stamp + some g.blur) its texture has been worked on not the overall colour and transition of light to dark. So for a better overall result you'd have to brush in or clone in some transitional shadow that isn't there in camera. It could also do with a hint of the redness being taken out but no pen / tablet with me at the moment so limited to the edit as is.
Click to expand...
Sharky, you are probably not far wrong about fresh eyes, but you are absolutely bang on about the light transition not being there to start with. But I think it has to be brushed/cloned in or something to make the edit seamless.

Rhodese, really like your not so "humble effort"! Good thinking and I will have a go at that, so thanks for providing the steps. Unfortunately I think it might be Sunday before I get back to it but I will post results. I might try to extend the fading shadow upwards very slightly to fill the very slight unevenness just right (as we look) of centre, but TBH if I get as good a result as yours I will be happy.

Thanks to all for your time and effort. Appreciated :)
 
Not sure if this is quite as good as Rhodese's work but quite pleased with it. good method. Thanks again to all. I will post a few pics from the session soon.


Untitled-1 by Maver!ck on Talk Photography
 
Some great post production examples so far!!! Always difficult to retouch areas along the edge of lighting.

With a bit more work, detail could be added to the highlights (if you wanted to) as at #fee6ce it's not yet clipped so a texture mask would add in a slight skin texture. There is still some blending of shadows to do, but as a quick fix the test below is not too bad and would likely print well.

View attachment 30057
 
Just seen this, my apologies I thought you wanted the small 'indentation' above the lip removed
 
ccimaging said:
Some great post production examples so far!!! Always difficult to retouch areas along the edge of lighting.



View attachment 30057
Click to expand...
Agreed there ccimaging. And like your example too. I think the shadows are well blended but you are also right about the skin texture. Though I wonder would the addition of a texture mask as you suggest be lost in subsequent skin softening or would it still be necessary to maintain a consistent end result? - Just hypothetically, I'm done working on this one now!
 
Some good examples already, to add my way... I find with spots a lot of the issue comes from the discolouration from the skin in the area as much as the area itself. I started with a layer to fix the redness, I used curves here but if it was worse I'd probably use an hsl layer and mask sparingly. Once the redness was removed I just used the healing brush on a blank layer set below the colour adjustment set to current and below to pick some texture clean it up. I'd follow up with some dodging and burning but don't have my tablet connected and hate doing it on touchpad.


Untitled.jpg
 
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Does it really need the texture mask if it will have subsequent softening, that's a good question. I'm going to say it does and it doesn't, but that really depends on your client's order and how quickly you can accomplish it.

If this is a commercial job, there is a cost attached to your time. Depending on your final print size you may not see the benefit of the texture mask, so in this case it wouldn't be worth the time investment. If your client has selected this image but not yet decided on a print size, fully editing the master file is always the way to go.
 
ignore, got my knickers in a twist for no good reasons!
 
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How's that? Just a quick one as I have to run. The result would be better if the work was done on a large file

Rc8e0Ml.jpg
 
Rhodese said:
My humble effort.

Open in PS.
Copy layer.
Make a selection of the lighter good area to the left of the spot, make a slight feather.
Copy and paste into a new layer.
Open free transform, move a little and stretch the new layer over the problem area.
Add a layer mask to the new layer and with a low opacity brush blend the edges in.
Adjust the opacity of the layer to suit.
Flatten, clean up with the spot healing tool.
New layer, fill with 50% grey, change blending mode to Overlay or soft light, then with the foreground colour set to white and with a soft low value round brush paint over the light to dark areas to soften the join.
Flatten.
Done.

9924-1422632108-1aba6e132439553b43d713ef98aef982.jpg


Rhodese.
Click to expand...


LOL.. that's a hideously complicated way of removing a spot.... why not just use the heal tool?

View attachment 32097
 
admirable said:
Just seen this, my apologies I thought you wanted the small 'indentation' above the lip removed
Click to expand...
:D I thought he meant the indentation too.

I was thinking, what's he on about. It's bloody easy to remove!
 
Quote,"LOL.. that's a hideously complicated way of removing a spot.... why not just use the heal tool?"

Hi David, “LOL” at someone’s effort to help, that’s not like you, look out students. :).
Re my edit, initially I did use the healing brush but I kept getting a slight grey/blueing effect where the shadow begins, so I gave up on it.
There appears to be an ever so slight greying on your edit, though that might be my geriatric eyes playing tricks on me. ;).
Would you be so good as to explain the brush settings you used and from where you sampled.
 
Rhodese said:
Quote,"LOL.. that's a hideously complicated way of removing a spot.... why not just use the heal tool?"

Hi David, “LOL” at someone’s effort to help, that’s not like you, look out students. :).
Re my edit, initially I did use the healing brush but I kept getting a slight grey/blueing effect where the shadow begins, so I gave up on it.
There appears to be an ever so slight greying on your edit, though that might be my geriatric eyes playing tricks on me. ;).
Would you be so good as to explain the brush settings you used and from where you sampled.
Click to expand...


I'm not laughing at you the way you think I am... you clearly know your way around photoshop, and I'm not laughing at you per se... as that's quite a complex work flow. I was laughing at the amount of work you're going to when there's a tool made for exactly that task that takes a few clicks.

The blue/greying effect is either because you're using Spot Heal... which can not be targeted, or you're using Heal without accurately targeting it. Avoid edges with the heal tool, so a small heal brush kept away from the edge of the chin and targeted properly will work just fine.
 
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