Healing Brush "skips", leaves a line of brush-sized circles instead of a smooth line

When I use the healing brush is tends to "skip". It leaves a line of circles like a stamp would instead of a flowing line like it should leave. No matter how slow I move the brush it leaves a circle and then as I continue to draw nothing happens until I reach the edge of the first circle, it then drops another circle and it continues that way as long as I draw with it. The brush tool works fine, leaves a smooth line. The Spot Healing and Patch Tool work fine but the healing brush will not heal in a smooth stroke. It skips along a leaves a tail of circles the size of the brush. I am using a fast computer, i7 processor, 16bg ram and a SSD drive so I do not think speed is an issue. I upgraded from CS4 where the healing brush worked fine on this computer

If the spacing of a tool's brush is 100% then it will behave as you described.
Reduce the spacing to get a stroke without circles.
Reset Tool as shown by R_Kelly will set the spacing to 25%, but it'll also reset the size and hardness of the brush and reset other options of the tool.

Similar Messages

Spot Healing Brush

It seems that I must have clicked on something because my Spot Healing Brush does not work like it did before! When I click on it, I have to click on an area first and cannot change the size of the brush! At the top it says
BRUSH - MODE - SOURCE: SAMPLED AND PATTERN - ALIGNED AND SAMPLE ALL LAYERS.
I want it back to what it originally was - what do I have to do? I work on photos and use this to touch up cracked photos, etc.

Sounds like you have the Healing Brush Tool selected instead of the Spot Healing Brush Tool.
Both tools are grouped in the same slot in the toolbox
Press and hold on the healing brush icon in the toolbox to reveal the flyout menu.
You can also press Shift+J to cycle between the two tools.
What version of photoshop elements?

When I use spot or healing brush it works a little and then starts leaving dark smudges or lines

The spot and healing brush seems to work a little, but then leaves dark smudges or even complete dark lines. Also seems to pick up other objects in the picture as if it is copying a section of the picture. Have tried to reset, but nothing works.

The Spot Healing Brush in Photoshop CS5 uses Content Aware Fill, and it's function is EXACTLY to go find other parts of the picture to fill in over what you clicked on. What is it that you expect it to do if not that?
As Christoph has said, please provide some image examples. It may be that it's not working correctly, but it's impossible to tell whether you're seeing it do what's expected without seeing the before/after results you're seeing.
-Noel

Healing brush tool at lines of high contrast

I love the healing brush tool but hate how it doesn't work right in the proximity of high contrast areas. It leaves that little light or dark halo. Can anyone tell me why/how/solutions as to why it does this? I know bumping up the hardness works a little but then you might as well use the clone tool. Any thoughts?

I know bumping up the hardness works a little but then you might as well use the clone tool.
There's more to the Healing Brush than that. It blends the surrounding pixels and what you just painted together to create a seamless composition (most of the time anyway) while the Clone Stamp Tool will basically only copy/paste pixels. To get rid of the bleeding effect when using the Healing Brush you have to make a selection that would not include the areas of high contrast. You can also try using the Clone Stamp Tool set to either the Darken or Lighten blend modes to make it blend better with the rest of the composition.

Strange lines using healing brush/clone brush.

This happens to me all the time using the healing brush or cloning tool. I allready turned gpu accelleration off but it still exists! Also updated graphics card drivers. No go.
It exists on both machines, using different graphics cards and different cpu's.
I am using windows 8, windows 7 and photoshop cs6 extended.
It doesn't seem to be a gpu problem since i turned that off.
Hope someone can point me to a solution.

I've been running into this exact same problem with the healing/clone brush. Where do I go to turn off the "windowtabs" tool? I'm using PS CS6 with Win 7.
Update:
Googled WindowTabs tool. From what I found, I don't believe that I have this "tool" loaded on my puter. Searched my drives for windowtabs and found nothing. If it's not on my puter, something else is causing the issues with the PS healing brush/clone tools. In my situation, the brush "selects" other areas than I'm trying to fix, but not every time. Very frustrating, especially when you discover "damage" to parts of the image that can't be undone by going back far enough to undo the damage. I have to watch closely as I make my selections to make sure that the area I selected was actually done correctly. Love the tools, but I hate having my work flow slowed down by having to watch for their erratic behavior.
Message was edited by: filmtopixels

CS4 Healing Brush is leaving grey instead of sourced color

I'm having trouble with the CS4 Healing Brush. In the past, when I used the alt key to source the flesh color of a person's face and then applied it to another area to even out what I had already cloned with the cloning brush, it always worked great. But now the healing brush lays down a greyish color, totally ruining the flesh color. I'm wondering if I accidentaly hit a key somewhere and changed a setting. I can't find anything that alters the color of the healing brush. And anyway, it should be the color I choose with my alt key.
Someone, please help! I used my healing brush a lot, in conjunction with my cloning tool and It has always been very successful up to now.

Yes, I did have the mode set to something else - luminosity. I changed it to normal and it works! Thanks for your help. I must have been experimenting with something else recently and forgot to change it back).
Thanks again!

Healing brush shape dynamics

Does anyone know if there are brush shape options for the healing brush? It seems that when I use the shift button (to draw a straight line), the resulting path is like the brush with "shape dynamics" on, which I usually leave off. Is there a way to alter this?
Thanks,
Randy

Hi Randy,
Double check the Size: drop down menu in the Brush dialog. You access that by clicking on the Brush image in the Options Bar. Set the Size: dialog to Off and see if that solves your problem.

Photoshop CS5 Spot Healing Brush only blurs

Here's a before and after shot. I recently upgraded from CS3 and the spot healing brush always worked great.
Now when I use it, whether or not I use content aware fill, it leaves a blurred residue of what I was trying to remove.
As an aside, the Content Aware Fill leaves a similar residue, enough to make it effectively unusable.
I have included a sample photo of the spot healing brush problem. Left side is before and right side is after.
I just wanted to get rid of the electrical wall socket. You can see that it's not working. I am running windows 8 in a 64-bit environtment and running the 64-bit version of Photoshop CS5.5
Any assitance anyone is able to afford me is greatly appreciated.
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In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with your choice of Spot Healing Brush for this image. I cropped your screenshot to the "BEFORE" image, removed the "BEFORE" type (with the SHB) and scaled to 600% to match your original document.
A dab of a 0% hardness 500 pixel Spot Healing Brush in Ps CS5.1 on OS X 10.6.8 worked perfectly. However, I would have made a vertical stroke with the brush at about 80% hardness and about 200 pixels, which also works for me.
Maybe your SHB is working in "Create Texture" mode despite specifying "Proximity Match" in Options bar. Try resetting the SHB by right-clicking its icon at left of Options bar and picking "Reset Tool" from the menu that appears.

Spot/Healing Brush Tool?

I have used the Spot/Healing Brush in Lgtrm3 and now have Lgtrm 5; however, my Spot/Healing Brush in 5 does not work. I will click on the healing brush then adjust my brush size then click on the spot, then click "done". Nothing happens. Am I missing a step or is it the program?
Gentle Teacher

Rikk,
Thanks for the help. I didn't realize that there was an opacity slifer for theSpot Brush. I see that if I increase the feathering there are times when it seems to leave a ghost. Any ideas? Also, When removing spots why would you use a feather edge as opposed to a hard one and how much feathering should a person use? I realize that these questions may require more time than you have but any comment or suggestion would be appreciated.

Spot healing brush issues in photoshop elements 11

I am new to photoshop elements 11. I am trying to use the spot healing brush. I select "content aware,' "sample all layers," and a brush, but I only get the cross hairs of the cursor, and not the black circle. My cursor preferences are currently at the default. I get a black line when I press the mouse key, but nothing changes in the photo. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.
Sue

I found that I had some problematic brush settings. I've developed this checklist for when I have similar issues:
o Try changing the px on the brush slider in thespot healing tool
o Go to the BRUSH tool (B), change opacity asneeded (probably 100%), go to the brush settings drop down and change thehardness (again probably to 100%)
o Check that CAPS LOCK is NOT on
o Go to the center icon (lower right by the ?),drop down, then select "reset all Tools," then restart the photoeditor
o Then try to reset the editor preferences: Quitthe editor, restart it from the welcome screen while holding downctrlshiftalt, then say "yes" to delete the settings file
You don't have to do all of these things. They are just things to check when you have brush problems. So now I'm working OK. I hope that this works for you.
Sue

Healing Brush's sampler remains active, wreaking havoc

I am a first-time user of Photoshop Elements (8, just arrived today), but I think I've discovered a bug:
When I try to use the Healing Brush, I Alt+Click on an area I want to copy, and then begin painting over the blemishes. However, the pixels replacing the blemishes are NOT what I clicked on, but are constantly changing, and I see a second cursor over to the right that is sampling pixels as I paint/heal. If the second cursor (which moves in lockstop with my mouse movements and the cursor I'm controlling, but off to the side) moves over a black spot, my brush paints black; if it moves over a thick line, a thick line is painted in the area where I want to "heal."
Is this an undocumented feature, a new bug in APE8, or what?
IOW, rather than continually applying the same thing (what I Alt+Clicked on), the Healing Brush is mirroring whatever the "ghost" cursor is over.

You have the overlay option turned on. When you drag rather than click, the healing brush and the clone stamp will automatically sample in a pattern following the movement of the brush, beginning where you alt clicked. You can turn the overlay off in the options bar, but you can't keep these tools from going into aligned mode when you drag. (The overlay is new; the aligned-when-dragging behavior isn't.)
The dark area under the cursor is to show you your stroke more carefully. It has no effect on the final result any more than the marching ants type outline in previous versions. It's just a visibility aid.

Will upscaling or using clone stamp/healing brush to upsize give better resolution?

I'm designing a 5.25" square CD cover using a rectangular image and the resolution needs to be min. 300ppi to print . The artist sent me the art image (painting) from her camera as a jpeg and it goes to photoshop as a large (approx 20" X 24") file at 72 ppi. To change the ppi to 300 without resampling (I've been told this is best), the image becomes too narrow (4 1/2") and too high (5.9").
I don't want to crop because I don't want to lose content. I want the image to completely cover the CD cover And I want to keep the same proportions for certain parts of the image. So I believe my two best options are as follows:
1. Bring the image to 300ppi with the measurements above, protect certain parts of the image on an alpha channel, content aware scale the rest of the image wider to make it square and then resize down a bit for the CD cover or
2. Bring the image to 300ppi and then use the clone stamp and healing brush tool or content aware fill (doesn't work so well on this image) to duplicate and extend the sides of the image to widen and square it and then resize down a bit for the CD cover.
Does anyone know which of these options will give the best resolution? Is upscaling more likely to cause pixelization than the other option? Is there a better way? Should I do options 1 and 2 to the large 72 resolution image instead of bringing it to 300ppi first and then upscale or clone stamp--would that give better results?
Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated!

You've said that you don't want to crop, and you want to cover the entire CD cover. That leaves you with two choices. Extend the short side(s) via cloning, content aware fill, etc. or stretch the image in one direction, either with the standard free-transform or with content aware transform. See what looks best. Your resolution will be fine. You can res up if you need to. The amount you're short will not matter here. Leave room for bleed - usually 1/8".

Healing brush is semi-transparent

I have Windows XP, sp2, Photoshop CS3.
When I drag the healing brush over a section I want to heal, the sampled color looks just fine, but when I release the mouse button, the area turns semi-transparent instead of keeping the full color. I thought there was a problem with my transparency setting, but I can't seem to find where to view that, and I don't think this is the issue. If I drag the brush over the same area a few times, the area does not become more opaque.
Perhaps I should mention that I usually use the brush to repair the borders of lines that are too indented to fix with the smudge, and I need to fill out the line a bit; the designated healing area usually has a background that has been made transparent with the eraser tool.
Thank you so much for any help anyone can give me, I really appreciate it!

The healing brush samples pixels of the surrounding area to be fixed. In areas where adjacent areas are different from target zone you can run into problems. Like OldBob says the clone stamp may work better as one can pick the area you are cloning from easier.

Healing Brush Problem (PSCS5)

Hi there, today my friend was creating tilable textures using the Offset tool, and then taking the Healing Brush tool to fix up the bad edges between the tiles. This has worked forever on his PC, but now suddenly is causing distortion when he uses it. Instead of having a soft edge to the healing brush marks, it comes out with distorted, pixelated edges.
Things to note:
• all other tools with soft edges work fine
• if the file is saved out as a different file format the problem is saved with it (still visible)
• only happens in CS5
• the pixelation on the edges of the brush strokes are solid color and don't look the same as what happens if turing a layer to dissovle or anything
• Photoshop CS5 Extended 64bit, Windows 7 64bit, GTX 260
-Thanks

So let me make sure I fully understand what is being attempted:
You're using the Healing Brush to essentially clone pixels from another part of the image to an area of the image that's transparent. You expect the soft edge of the brush to leave the edge of the result soft.
I think I can reproduce what you're seeing. Notably the blending doesn't seem to work properly either.
Here's what I see while brushing, then after I let up on the mouse button:
I think the real problem here is that it really doesn't seem to make much sense to use the Healing Brush on a transparent part of the image. It's prime function is to mix the result in with the surroundings. What are the surroundings in a transparent area? At best, you might hope to get white pixels there.
Some ideas that might help you work around this issue:
1. Use a layer mask to manage the transparency, and have the pattern entirely there in the image. In other words, separate the texture prep entirely from the transparency prep.
2. Use the Clone Stamp tool instead of the Healing Brush if you really need to brush over transparent pixels.
-Noel

Spot healing brush alignment problem

Using Photoshop CS4 (11.0) on a Mac with 10.5.6. Sometimes the spot healing brush works as expected. However, after working for a while, the alignment seems to be off--I hover the cursor over the spot I want to retouch, but when I click the mouse the area retouched is a bit (1/4" or so) below the spot healing brush cursor. If I quite and restart Pshop the problem goes away. This is with the spot healing brush--not the one where you need to select where to clone from. Is something wrong, or is there a new feature I don't know about that's causing this? I've used the spot healing brush quite a bit with CS3.
If anyone has any thoughts, I'd appreciate hearing them. This is getting frustrating.

I think you are talking about a different issue here. This problem is not specific to the spot healing brush.
@ OP: The brush alignment problem is very real and I have it frequently when working with larger files (approximately >500MB in memory). I have two macs, a macbook (GMA X3100) and a mac pro (ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT). So two completely different hardware arrangements that have the exact same problem.This is clearly not a problem with graphics cards.
Drawing with any tool like: brush (any brush - dodge/burn, blur, eraser etc.), lasso (any lasso), line, crop tool etc. will result in a misalignment of about 0,5 cm directly downward. However, clicking on menus and dialogue boxes works as expected. Switching off OpenGL features in PS WILL NOT PREVENT THE PROBLEM (if I shout, maybe Adobe will hear...). The same problem appears whether I'm using a Wacom tablet or a mouse. It even appears when the Wacom driver is uninstalled.
So, if Adobe is not acknowledging the problem it's safe to assume it will be featured in CS5 as well.
@ Jim: Sorry, I would have posted in the other thread but your link does not work anymore.

Healing Brush "skips", leaves a line of brush-sized circles instead of a smooth line

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