The Patch Tool: Does More than You Think | Complete Photoshop Guide

today we gonna dive deep into everything that we need to know about the patch - in Photoshop right from what is the patch tool and how to use it - some really interesting techniques that you wouldn't know if you didn't know we have got a ton of examples to illustrate each and every technique it's gonna be a fun tutorial so without any further ado let's get started so here we on Photoshop and if you go ahead and download any of the photos shown in this video make sure to check the links in the description in case you wanna download them and follow along alright so first of all let's understand what is the patch - well a patch tool is a tool that allows you to remove and replace stuff that's all there is patch tool is used to remove and replace stuff this one more use we'll discuss that later but the basic use in which patch tool is often used is for removing and replacing stuff then he might ask there's clone stamp as well there's healing brush as well but patch tool style is a little different let me illustrate so for example in this image have a look at this there are a lot of sheep right but there is this one which is a little distracting I don't know if that's distracting to you but let's for a second let's assume that it is distracting so you'll go ahead and choose the patch tool right here right click if you cannot see him the Spot Healing healing it's on the same group so there is this patch tool select that and all you have to do you can make a copy of the background layer but I'm just illustrating make a selection around it okay stay away from the wire all right now we need to remove and replace this first of all determine what do you need to remove and replace then make a selection around that area on the top make sure patch is normal we gonna discuss content-aware later make sure it is normal make sure it is source I'll tell you why in a while alright so make sure transparency is checked off we don't need to use any pattern diffusion 5 is the standard number so all you have to do drag it see it's showing us the preview of what that area will be replaced with so choose an area which fits the best into this area instead of that shape so I think line it up properly and then release it and done it pretty much does the job and once you're done press ctrl or command D and there you go so this is the after and if you want to see the before since we have done this on the background layer we would have to go to history so windows and then there is history so let's go to open so this was the before this is the after so that was the basic and fundamental use of the patch tool now let us understand the options which are at the top okay so let's go back all the way to open and let's minimize the history panel and then with the patch tool let's do the same and this time let's try another sheep so we'll just zoom in and let's try this one okay so first of all let us understand source and destination so you can select this sheep okay so right now source is selected which means that I'm gonna determine or you're gonna determine the source from which the replacement is being done so you will determine the source for this particular area that you have selected okay so if I move in I determine that from this source I want to take in the reference and place this area with that particular area whichever source have you selected so I will select this source and I'll just release it so I'm selecting what the source now let's go back let's choose destination let's click on destination this time I will determine the destination for this shape so if I want a duplicate of this I'll just place it right there press ctrl or command D done but that's not how it is used this time we select the area that we want to replace this area with and then boom ctrl or command D what did we do we determined the destination of the area that we selected so in this case when we have the destination selected we select it and we determine the destination of it we don't determine the source in the previous case when the source was selected we select this and we determine the source from which to take a reference in the second case we determine the destination of the selected area in the first case we determine the source of the selected area make sense now I want you to have a look at this these are standard selection options so this is the normal one new selection so I'll just go ahead and make a selection as simple as that and if you want to subtract something from this selection you might have to use this one because if you hover over it see what it does subtract from selection it actually tells you whenever you don't understand a tool in Photoshop just hover over it it will tell you what it does okay so if you select subtract from selection it actually helps you subtracting from that particular selection then there is add to selection so if you select that it adds to the selection whoops I didn't mean to do that so select add to the selection and then it adds to the selection now this is intersection so if you hover over it it will say that it intersects with the selection so if you select that and make a selection like this it will only make a selection of the intersection got that so basic selection tools and you don't have to use and click in all of them all you have to do if you want to add to the selection simply hold the shift key and then just make it see the cursor changes to the patch tool with the plus if you want to subtract from the selection hold the Alt key or the option key and then see the cursor changes to the patch tool icon with the minus and then you can just subtract from the selection and intersect is something which you won't be using so very often alright so that is about the selection let's move to example number two and in this example we can recover one of the most important concepts that you need to know about the patch two for example in this example if we zoom in have a look at this bush this is kind of distracting and we need to remove that we will do that using the patch tool it's quite and select the patch two now when using the patch tool you have to keep that in mind that patch tool does a great job when it comes to replacing isolated stuff if you try to replace attached things it will smear so you should avoid that and we will cover this in other examples all right so let's go ahead and make a selection out of it just like that if you want let's select this as well because they are attached and stay away from that pole right over there and once you have made this just drag it and place it at a place where things line up now this is the most important concept all these place it and take a source from a place where things line up make sure that things are lining up pretty well so if I place it here it's not lining up very properly if I place it here yeah it is good but still okay you're gonna work on that later let's work on it one by one so let's place it at a place where it lines up the best yes so this is pretty good not great so you're gonna place it here just one line is out of alignment everything else is in place so let's try placing it over here let's take a little bit to the right and just release it let's see what it does it did a pretty good job but it messed up around here no problem we can work on it again all right so one of the other things which you can do you can work on a copy of the background layer in case you feel that you want that backup all right so here things are not quite working so he can make a selection around here and work on this one just like that and here the things won't be working so you need to work it out it's it's kind of a thing that you need to work on again and again then you need to work on this and it's gonna be a little difficult but make sure that things are lining up here as well it's all good but you just have to select this particular area and probably take a sample from over here make sure things are lining up ctrl or command D and you're done here as well do the same thing make a selection of this let's make a middle ground it's not very perfect or aligned just go ahead or these areas where the patch tool doesn't work you can use the basic selection tool so use any selection tool like the lasso tool and just just make a selection of this area press ctrl or command J we're gonna put it on its own layer so as you can see this is on its own layer we're gonna move it and place it around here and then press ctrl or command T right click on it and go to distort the inside of distort you can just line that up properly just like that they can match it with this one and you get the idea and it entered once you're done now we would have spent a little more time matching this and then click on the mask button take the brush and soften the edges by painting them with black again what is the concept of mask black conceals white reveals any area that we paint flatten that area doesn't show up so if we select the mask and then take the brush make sure the foreground color is black by pressing X to toggle between the foreground and the background and then just erase the edges like this and it did a pretty good job have a look at this you're done so at time certain things are not lining up use the basic simple selections now let's talk about one of the most important and often ignored features of the patch tool and that is the content-aware patch and we will learn how to customize that as well all right to select the patch tool and have a look at this example there is this man which is kind of distracting this image so we need to remove that so first of all let's make a copy of the background layer this is something which you can do to be on the safer side and if you want reference or if you want to use the masks this is masks this is gonna be very useful press ctrl or command J to make a copy of the background layer and then select the patch tool and this time instead of normal let's click on the drop down menu and select content aware okay now one of the greatest features of the content-aware is that it allows you to sample all layers which means that you can work on a blank layer what does that mean well you can create a blank layer and if you want to remove something for example if you want to remove tears you can just remove it in a blank layer and on this blank layer just the removed area will exist so this area has its own layer isn't that interesting I can turn it off and on anytime I can use masks on add masks on it what's happening with me today so that's the advantage however if you had selected normal it will not work on a blank layer so let's go ahead and delete this and create new blank layer and if you try to do that with the normal selected it just won't work it says could not use the patch tool because the selected area is empty so content-aware gives you the option of working on a new so that's the one hash one advantage the second advantages if you choose the content-aware and let's try to remove it and we will work on the same layer because we will have to tweak in the normal one as well so let's line it up and it did a pretty good job but you can modify this how have a look at these two structure and color you can play with these things so you can just play with different values of structures and colors and see which one works best for you I think for me structure to works best and color let's increase it to 10 no probably 9 or 8 the way it was before I'm happy with 8 press ctrl or command D and have a look at this this isn't perfect but we can work in the normal again and that's why normal is also useful because it sometimes does the perfect job most of the times does the perfect job as compared to the content of it and then you can just sample in different areas trying to merge these things in again take a sample try to merge them and you get the idea this area has a line on it so we'll select that and take a sample from this and just to work on it on our way into perfection so there you go that's how you do it now we didn't do a perfect job but you got the idea of how we can go about it so you can just make a whole selection of this and probably try to replace it with this and that does a wonderful job we can just remove this area and there we go so have a look before after before after so that's the content of a patch now let's talk about some practical uses of the destination option inside of patch to have a look at this image if you think the birds are not enough here's what to do press ctrl or command J first make a copy of the background layer to be on the safe aside and having a look at the before and after okay so select the patch tool and this time choose destination so if you are a populate the sky just select this particular bird and select it and move it probably here ctrl or command D so we have more birds now select one and move it there control or command D isn't the Hat wonderful have a look at the before and after before after before after two extra Birds over there if you want some extra probably let's select this one and place it over here control or command D it automatically tries to match with the background control or command D before after so that's some practical use of destination you might have seen skies with very less hot-air balloon so you wanna populate them you can use this technique if you want to populate birds or probably stars at alone you can use this too very interesting one in this example we will learn a very important selection tip if you want to draw straight lines you can do that as well for example this time I want to replace this windmill so instead of doing something like this and not being very accurate here's what we can do while you are making the selection you can hold the alt or option and just make a selection like that it transforms the tool to act like the polygonal lasso tool so you can make straight lines like that it's very easy much easier this way and very easily select this and once you're done once you're close to the start just release the alt and you're pretty much done press ctrl or command D so if you wanted to replace this so hold the alt or option click click click click very easy right you don't have to draw anything but if when things are straight please use this technique so let's select this now let's okay let's stuff now we have selected a little extra so here's what we do as we learned before hold the alt or option and then draw now this is a little confusing if we hold the alt or option this turns into a minus however let's deselect that by pressing ctrl or command D if you hold the alt yes it does turn into a minus one when the selection is there if there's no selection it doesn't make any sense so for example there was a selection and then when you hold the alt or option it turns into the negative patch to the negative selection patch tool however if you have no selection and you ho the older option you can just work on it like a polygonal lasso tool same goes with the lasso tool if you wanna work on it and if you hold the alt or option or at any time it turns into the polygonal lasso tool and then you release it and it's done so that's how things work over here let's make a selection of this by holding alt or option and by the way you can use the selection tool to make a selection and then use the patch tool to move it as well you can do that if you want to so there are no limitations to this thing so let's make a selection of this and then we can come back to the patch tool and then you can use the same selection and oops what happened the destination is selected make sure the source is selected and then move it this way let's try this area yeah I didn't do a perfect job but we can work on it one by one so we can select this area again and just like this and work on separate areas and you get the idea you get the hang of it okay and that's how we do it so for making straight selections hold the alt or option in this example we will learn a very strategic way to use the patch tool along with the clone stamp tool to solve its demerits now what is the demerit now one of the biggest demerit of the patch tool is that it doesn't work well with things which are attached for example if you had to remove an island using the patch tool its surrounded by water it would be very easy to do that just select the island and just replace it with water however if you have to remove something a piece of land that is attached to a larger piece of land and you want to remove just that particular piece of land but that's attached if you try to remove it that area will smear let me illustrate that for you there was noise just ignore that noise okay so if we try to remove a branch from this now the branches are attached select the patch tool at the normal one let's make a copy of the background layer by pressing ctrl or command J now if you try to remove this branch have a look this area smudges and that's what I was talking about anything which is island ish will be easier to remove the but anything which is attached it it's nearly impossible it will smear however you can do this by using the clone stamp tool and the patch tool together here so let me illustrate that for you once again because that's very important to understand so if there is something which is attached and you want to remove it using the patch tool you won't be able to do that because it smears now what if I listen to this carefully what if we just make the island you are not removing it we are not replacing it yet what if we just make the island by using the clone stamp tool and then use the patch tool how about that now hold that for a second zoom in let's make the island using the clone stamp tool now what the clone stamp tool does it doesn't do any of the math in it just calculation it doesn't care about what area am i replacing it with it doesn't try to match texture and color doesn't do anything structure and all that stuff with the patch tool anything it's just a copy paste with the brush that's what the clone stamp tool is it's simply a copy paste so select the clone stamp tool and we will take a sample from this particular area let's take a sample by holding the alt or option click on that particular area make sure the blend mode is normal opacity and flow at hundred and sample currently is fine let's just break it and create an island like that okay now we have created an island we need to make it a little sharper like that okay the island is now created how about using the patch tool now now if you use the patch tool like that have a look at this gone and you can use this in complex scenarios where things are attached you can use the clone stamp tool to just separate stuff to create the island and then you can remove the island and replace the island using the patch tool again let me illustrate that for you again if this is distracting this piece of junk right over there use the clone stamp tool to just make an island first so let's sample this particular area make an island then use the patch tool and remove it just like that easy now this is an easy example in complex scenarios as well where you need to remove some hair pieces of hair just coming out and you want to use the patch tool you have to use the clone stamp tool to first separate it and then use the patch tool to replace that particular area welcome to the final example and in this example we will learn one of the most important use of patch tool when it comes to portray tree touching I think it's the most important when it comes to portrait retouching all of the other techniques are important but this is very important for portrait retouch it alright so first of all let's make a copy of the background layer by pressing ctrl or command shape okay let's zoom in and then suppose you want to remove this line the eye bags and stuff so select the patch to select this particular area easy replace it with this area just like that now that is fine but that's kind of too much and if you look at it if I press ctrl or command D as you can see it's looking very unnatural if you're trying to work on this again and remove this it's very unnatural it doesn't look perfect so here's what to do instead of doing that once you have made a selection replace it with the particular area that you want to replace it with release it and before you hit ctrl or command D and before you deselect that go to edit fade patch selection select that and decrease the opacity what it does is that it decreases the opacity of the replacement did you get that so this is complete replacement of what we did and this is the before the complete before and this opacity can shows the opacity of the replacement if I switch the opacity 200% move in two hundred percent then the replacement shows up 100 percent the opacity 100% as I begin to decrease the opacity the opacity of just the replacement decreases or in other simple terms the transparency of the replacement increases okay so let's decrease it a bit we have to keep it natural so if you want to maintain a natural 'ti in your images you can use this to hit OK and then press ctrl or command D it's more natural looks much better I can work on this one just like that only if you have to use it you can go to edit fade pad selection the shortcut to which is shift ctrl F so let's press the shortcut shift ctrl F command shift F in a Mac okay and then decrease the opacity and just work on it hit OK ctrl or command D now let me show you one more quick and amazing tip so for example you're working on the left eye this time and you want to remove this so we will just make a selection around it and replace it with probably this area ok all right now if you want to fade the selection by going to edit fade pan selection and these lines are distracting these marching ants they look distracting to you what you can do you can press ctrl or command H H for hat and then hide that and then work on this see it hides the line it doesn't deselect that it just hides it ok and then you can work on it it's much more better right so yeah that's good let's take it a little bit to the left it's ok and then if you press ctrl or command H again H or how do you pronounce it I don't know then press ctrl or command D the selection is still there even when you're using the content of a patch for example there's nothing to remove but you'll pretend that we have to remove this so squared and select this particular area and suppose you are using the content-aware and in this case too while he is selecting some area for example this particular area and you selected that and you need to work on the structure and the color and you cannot see which one matches her or not you can actually press ctrl or command H again and then work on this to see which one matches better if that line was distracting you one is not matching great so we'll just increase the structure to probably three see which one matches with your image and then work on it and go forward then press ctrl or command H again to bring that back in press ctrl or command D deselect that ok that's how it's done and by the way can also directly press control or command D if you can remember stuff for example if you made a selection like this and if you pressed ctrl or command H and you hided it then you want to deselect that you don't have to bring it back by pressing ctrl or command H again and then press ctrl or command D you can directly do it if you can remember that there is a selection and that's all there is so that's everything important that we need to know about the patch tool in Photoshop just a quick little recap what is the flash - well patch tool is a tool to remove and replace stuff well that's the fundamental and the basic use of the patch tool however you can also use the duplicate function to actually populate stuff but that's secondary but the fundamental and the basic function of the patch tool is to remove and replace stuff by using a selection so you make a selection drag it to the area that you want to replace it with release it ctrl or command D that area is replaced one of the most important things that we need to remember about the patch tool is that always make sure that you line things up in the second example we had a look at it so we made a selection around the bush and we moved it to other area we made sure that the railings are lining up so make sure things line up while you using the patch tool in case the normal patch is not working or in case you wanna experiment you want to customize stuff you can use the content-aware patch and one of the advantages of the content-aware patch is that it allows you to work on a blank layer by checking sample all layers so you can create a blank layer and work on the content of a patch now once you apply the content-aware patch there are two options sure and color you can work on both of them separately to see which one works for you the most on the top two above the bass shoot there are two options source and destination what a source well when you have source selected you determine the source of the selected area what does that mean well for example if you want to remove this mic from this image you will simply make a selection around it and choose a source for this for example a part of my track soup so you will select this area as a source to replace that particular area but he have chosen destination and you want to remove the mic you will choose this particular area and choose the destination for your selection so you will choose the destination which is this and place it here that will cover the microphone so in destination you determine the destination of the selected area in source we determine the source of the selected area when it comes to selections there are couple of steps which are important tip number one hold the alt or option to make straight lines while making a selection it actually makes it act like polygonal lasso tool and then if you make the selection once the selection is made you can hold the alt or option to turn that selection into a negative selection and you can subtract areas from the selection similarly if you hold this shift key it adds to the selection then we learnt one of the biggest D merits of the patch tool and what is that it doesn't work on objects which are attached so any object which is attached to something if you try to remove it using the patch tool that area will smear also any area which is Island dish which is surrounded by waters for example it will be easier to remove and if you want to remove a piece of land attached to a larger piece of land it would be very difficult with the patch tool so how do we do it by taking clone stamp tool into action so using the clone stamp tool we make the thing I'll and ish we separate it first and then using the patch tool free replace it last but not the least if you want to bring back some naturality into your portrait while removing those wrinkles and eye bags you can use the fade bad selection option so once you make a selection replace that particular area it's a hundred percent replacement you can go to edit fade patch selection that allows you to control the opacity of the replacement and that's all there is for this tutorial I hope this was helpful and if this was make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe or ring the bell so that you my friend don't miss a thing I would like to take this moment to thank all these nice people for helping keep pigs in perfect free for everybody forever by supporting us on patreon thank you so much guys I'll see you guys my next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 579,227

Rating: 4.9388275 out of 5

Keywords: patch tool, photoshop, tutorial, photoshop guide, remove objects in photoshop, replace, duplicate objects in photoshop, clone stamp tool, structure, color, photoshop advanced, source, destination, content-aware, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: bPLMVGzn3Ts

Length: 29min 14sec (1754 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2018