Soldato
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Say I wanted to edit a portrait in photoshop and remove say spots and blemishes using a non destructive method. How would you go about it?
Photoshop layers..?
- Thread starter Johnny|lucidcomposure
- Start date
Make a new blank layer, grab your Clone stamp or Healing brush tool, at the top set the drop down box where it says 'Sample' to 'Current layer and below'. Or if you have large sections that may need stamping or content aware filling, just duplicate the layer and clone/heal on that layer. I prefer the first method as it keeps the file size down (duplicate the layer and you're duplicating every pixel, it's not nessecary if you're only removing 100 pixels worth of spots), but also because I rarely use stamp or CAF.
You may think the file size thing is anal, but it's good practice for if you start working on huge comps/beauty retouches. They can very quickly build into lots of layers so keeping things streamlined and fast is easier. It's also great if you want to seperate every aspect of your image for flexibility re-editing later on. You may want a cleanup layer for the face, one for the body, one for the background. If you do this with 3 blank layers you're only ever increasing the file size by the amount of pixels you clone/heal (plus a tiny amount for the existence of the layer itself). If you'd done that with 3 duplicate layers not only would you not be able to see the 2 layers + background below the top one but you'd have a file 4 times the size!
You may think the file size thing is anal, but it's good practice for if you start working on huge comps/beauty retouches. They can very quickly build into lots of layers so keeping things streamlined and fast is easier. It's also great if you want to seperate every aspect of your image for flexibility re-editing later on. You may want a cleanup layer for the face, one for the body, one for the background. If you do this with 3 blank layers you're only ever increasing the file size by the amount of pixels you clone/heal (plus a tiny amount for the existence of the layer itself). If you'd done that with 3 duplicate layers not only would you not be able to see the 2 layers + background below the top one but you'd have a file 4 times the size!
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thats it! I knew it was something like that! Couldnt remember! Cheers Adrianr! 
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Have always simply duplicated the layer myself, completely forgot about being able to set the clone source as any layer, thanks Adrianr, can see this saving me a lot of HDD space now lol.
Pleasure It's not just about saving hardrive space either. As the file is smaller it saves faster, allowing you to do more quick saves without interupting your workflow too much (Another good habit to pick up! As soon as you start save the PSD file straight away to a new folder called PSDs, or Working, or whatever, then just hit CMD/CTRL + S whenever you remember)
It's not just about saving hardrive space either. As the file is smaller it saves faster, allowing you to do more quick saves without interupting your workflow too much (Another good habit to pick up! As soon as you start save the PSD file straight away to a new folder called PSDs, or Working, or whatever, then just hit CMD/CTRL + S whenever you remember)
Soldato
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Yeah its all about working non destructively for me. I work with PSDs and everything is an adjustment so I can always tweak days, months years down the lines to refine my style and adjustments. Just couldn't remember about the select previous layer feature.
Associate
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My thoughts exactly!! Nice one Adrianr
