Lightroom 5 Tutorial -Visualize Spots for Easy Backscatter Removal

[sloss]

Hey Everyone,

Wetpixel has just put up a short video tutorial I made that shows how the Visualize Spots feature of Lightroom's Advanced Healing Brush can help you quickly locate and remove hard to see backscatter from your underwater shots. It's a short one, but has some good workflow tips to help speed up your retouch work!

Enjoy!

 

[BoltSnap]

Hello Doug,

Do you use the "Heal" or the "Clone" to get rid of backscatter?

---------- Post added February 2nd, 2014 at 10:09 AM ----------

And BTW, is there an "advanced" and an "unadvanced" Healing brush?

 

[sloss]

Hello Doug,

Do you use the "Heal" or the "Clone" to get rid of backscatter?

---------- Post added February 2nd, 2014 at 10:09 AM ----------

And BTW, is there an "advanced" and an "unadvanced" Healing brush?

Hi Burhan,

When getting rid of dust spots and backscatter, I mainly use the brush in Heal mode, 100% Opacity, and usually feather the brush for seamless blending into the background be it water or sky. Generally, I find when I use the brush in Clone mode for this type of cleanup, the retouching circles don't blend in as well and evidence of their work remains.

However, there are times, where Clone mode works better. In areas where lots of detail exists the brush in Clone mode sometimes does a better job. If you are having trouble in one mode, try switching to the other to see if the result is better. If it is, use that one! Check out the lesson on the Spot Removal tool in the copy of Underwater Lightroom you have - it goes into great detail about that and how to switch between modes. This page also covers a few secrets of the tool too if anyone else is interested in retouching techniques.

Finally, the Advanced Healing brush is just the new name people at Adobe and others have begun calling the Spot Removal tool. Hover the tool in the Develop Module, and you'll still see it named the Spot Removal tool. Since they've spiffed it up with some new features I suppose the felt the need to "unofficially" rename it.

 

[BoltSnap]

Hi Burhan,

When getting rid of dust spots and backscatter, I mainly use the brush in Heal mode, 100% Opacity, and usually feather the brush for seamless blending into the background be it water or sky. Generally, I find when I use the brush in Clone mode for this type of cleanup, the retouching circles don't blend in as well and evidence of their work remains.

However, there are times, where Clone mode works better. In areas where lots of detail exists the brush in Clone mode sometimes does a better job. If you are having trouble in one mode, try switching to the other to see if the result is better. If it is, use that one! Check out the lesson on the Spot Removal tool in the copy of Underwater Lightroom you have - it goes into great detail about that and how to switch between modes. This page also covers a few secrets of the tool too if anyone else is interested in retouching techniques.

Finally, the Advanced Healing brush is just the new name people at Adobe and others have begun calling the Spot Removal tool. Hover the tool in the Develop Module, and you'll still see it named the Spot Removal tool. Since they've spiffed it up with some new features I suppose the felt the need to "unofficially" rename it.

Thank you. The video training program I bought from you is the most used CBT program for me. Great product.

 

[sloss]

Thanks Burhan. I'm glad you get a lot out of the lessons. They really are a great resource!

Best,
Doug