Need Tips/Help removing blemish from eye

slpollett · August 11, 2011

Hello, all...it's me again. I'm still trying to finish up work on the pictures originally discussed in this thread: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=203118. I have one last image to work on and it is proving to be beyond my limited abilities. The young lady had a large sty on one eye and she asked me to remove it (which I would have done anyway). I've tried a number of different things in photoshop cs3--healing brush, cloning, gaussian blur after healing, multiple layers & blending, etc. Nothing I have tried has looked "natural" once I've finished. I've made the area more noticeable most of the time actually. <sigh> I even tried a skin graft using paint shop pro. Everything I tried just looks bad, bad, BAD. I've read tutorials that have given me actions to try, but I can't get them to turn out right. I don't know what I'm missing.

Would anyone like to try your hand at fixing this eye and then tell me not just WHAT you did, but HOW you did it?? This is the last image I have to do for this project and I am anxious to get it off my plate. I'm more than a little frustrated with it right now. I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate a little help with this one! Here's a link (I think) to the original image: http://psphotos.smugmug.com/Sherry-Shots/HHHS-Red-Brigade-Band-11-12/Button-Photos/18349938_ZNKkpM#1425489460_2Nj8QRg-O-LB

I know the picture will need a little more tweaking after the eye gets repaired, but I need to get past the eye first.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Sherry

Sam · August 11, 2011

Sherry,

When I click on your link I am taken to a slide show with a small image. No can work with this. Can you put the original somewhere? Did you shoot in RAW?

Sam

zoomer · August 11, 2011

A couple minutes with the cloning tool. 30% opacity. Set it to darken and lighten as appropriate. Use a soft edged brush...except use a hard edged brush where the sharp skin edge needs to be maintained. No layers required.

First of all brighten the exposure to take some of the red out of her skin.

slpollett · August 11, 2011

Sorry Sam. I don't have a slideshow. The image is just on SmugMug's Original size (so it's huge and fills the screen.) You should be able to right-click save it from there though.

No, I didn't shoot RAW. I've never worked with RAW and may need to try that for future endeavors, but only JPEG for this go-round.

I appreciate you for taking time to attempt this. Sorry to be a bother, but thanks so much.

Sherry

slpollett · August 11, 2011

Zoomer, thanks for the reply. I've tried variations of cloning with anything from 20% to 75% opacity. I did use a soft brush for the most part. I tried a hard brush once & quickly backed up. The result when I did it looked just awful. :cry

I'll try again when I get home, but so far everything I have tried has looked worse than the original sty. Blech.....

Thanks again though.
Sherry

basflt · August 11, 2011

try using the the healing brush instead of clone , it works better
use a small brush and in small steps

also ;
duplicate the image
flip the duplicate
use the good eye on the flipped duplicate as a sample for the healing brush

zoomer · August 11, 2011

Yes use the soft brush at 30, clone from the good skin right next to it to maintain color lines. Along the eye use the hard edge brush and then even out with a soft edge just not along the eye to skin sharp line.
Use brighten where you need it brighter and darker where you need it darker...then even out what is left with the soft brush on normal.
This is an easy fix using the cloning tool. If you try using the healing brush you will want to shoot your foot off after 1 minute.

I have been using the cloning tool exclusively for work like this for years....this is an easy fix for me.....maybe not so much for someone less experienced with the tool.

Give it a solid effort. This really is easy using the cloning tool.

If I was home I would fix it for you...unfortunately that is still 6 hours away

.

basflt · August 11, 2011

zoomer
try the healing brush
it works the same as clone-tool , but
it uses the new content-aware technique

augustmelody · August 11, 2011

I played with it a little bit, I don't know if what I came up with is anywhere near good enough to use, but I'll share anyway, maybe you can go a bit further. I selected a portion of the opposite eye, copied and pasted in a new image, flipped horizontally and then pasted over the blemish (rotated to make it "fit). I then used the eraser tool with a fairly large, soft brush set at about 40% opacity to erase the unnecessary edges of the "new eye" and create a bit of a feather. Then to touch up the actual iris, I just did a tiny bit of clone stamping. I tried the healing brush but it wanted to bring the light skin tone up with it so I needed a bit more precision. I took screen shots as I went, I can post those if you'd like.

augustmelody · August 11, 2011

zoomer · August 11, 2011

That appears to have worked pretty slick.

dbveto · August 11, 2011

I remember hearing about that technique but I was using transform and flip horizontally, which was not working right. Thanks for posting the correct way.

augustmelody · August 11, 2011

SO glad I could help! And glad you guys seem to think I did an alright job, I never know if I should have confidence in my photoshop work - I'm totally self-taught and it seems like everyone else usually has a better, faster way to do things

. To the OP, if you'd like me to send you the full size file I can do that.

slpollett · August 11, 2011

That's IT!! Awesome!!

clap

Now I just have to duplicate it. I appreciate the screen shots that show your workflow. My photoshop skills are very slim & I am also self-taught. I haven't been able to make the leap to figure out how to do fix this problem on my own, so the screen shots are so helpful.

I am working on doing this myself right now, but just in case mine doesn't turn out so well, I will take you up on that offer if you don't mind sending the full size file. My email is psphotos@hot.rr.com.

I have learned a ton since beginning this project, so I want to thank everyone who helped me in my previous post and everyone who offered solutions to this post. Thanks augustmelody for showing me how it is done.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Sherry

augustmelody · August 11, 2011

No problem at all, again, really glad I could help. If you have any specific questions about how I got from point A to point B, please don't hesitate to ask! I'll email you in just a moment.

I included this in the email, but I kept playing with that shot - hope you don't mind that I took the liberty to do so!

Password, if prompted, is "PRT" http://mariellewatson.zenfolio.com/p41711059/e1f14d63e

dbveto · August 12, 2011

augustmelody wrote: »

No problem at all, again, really glad I could help. If you have any specific questions about how I got from point A to point B, please don't hesitate to ask! I'll email you in just a moment.

I included this in the email, but I kept playing with that shot - hope you don't mind that I took the liberty to do so!

Password, if prompted, is "PRT" http://mariellewatson.zenfolio.com/p41711059/e1f14d63e

Your instructions were great I duplicated the results and have added this tech to my bag of tricks.

Need Tips/Help removing blemish from eye

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