Spot Lifter is the
quickest and easiest way to remove small, low-contrast defects from images,
while blending in the appearance of the surrounding image. It works great
for cleaning up all sorts of skin blemishes, such as acne, freckles, moles,
and shadows under the eyes. Spot Lifter also removes small water stains,
mold spots, or any other softly-colored, low-contrast defect from a relatively
smooth background texture.
Before
After
Note: If you
can not get the results you want from Spot Lifter, use Scratch Remover
or Smart Fill for more advanced object removal in Image Doctor.
This chapter contains
the following sections:
Using Spot Lifter
1. Using the Lasso
tool, select the area around the spot that you want to remove. Try to
select an area as close as possible to the spot, but make sure you select
the entire defect.
2. Run Spot Lifter.
3. Adjust the Contract
or Expand Selection slider to make sure you are removing all of the defect,
without unnecessarily removing any extra image detail around the selection.
4. Starting with a
value of 100, adjust the Removal Strength slider. Try to use this slider
only as much as necessary. Extremely high values can completely blur the
authentic texture the filter-affected area.
5. Click OK.
Slider Descriptions
Contract or Expand
Selection (pixels)
Use this slider to
contract or expand your original selection from within the Image Doctor
interface.
Range -20 (20)
Why? If the
initial preview reveals remnants of your original selection, you can expand
your selection to knock out the leftovers. If you find that you are removing
some nearby desirable image detail, you can contract your selection a
couple of pixels to protect that area. Its best to make a good,
close selection before you run the filter, however.
Removal Strength
This slider controls
the strength of defect removal in Spot Lifter. Starting from 100, you
should lower Removal Strength value until you get the desired amount of
blemish removal, while preserving a natural appearance that blends smoothly
into the surrounding unaffected texture.
Range: 1 100.
Why not always use
100? The highest value of Removal Strength completely blurs the texture
that replaces your defect, and may yield an unnaturally smooth or polished
texture.
Feather Radius
Feather Radius creates
an opacity drop off around the edge of the affected area of your imagehelping
blend the filtered area with the surrounding unaffected pixels.
Range: 0 - 4 pixels.
Feathering
can cause an unnatural loss of detail at the edge of your selection if
used in excess.
Tutorials
Removing Shadows
and Bags Under Eyes
A great use for Spot
Lifter in portrait photography is the reduction of shadows and bags under
the eyes. Spot Lifter removes shadows and puffiness without removing the
realistic texture of the skin. Use the following procedure to remove bags
from your facial portraits.
1. Find a photo of
somebody with a killer hangover, such as the poor guy from the beginning
of the chapter.

2. Using the lasso
tool, select the swollen area under the eye.

3. Launch Spot Lifter.

4. If you have not
selected the entire area, increment the Expand/Contract Selection
slider until you have removed the entire area.
Note: Be careful
not to expand too far. You dont want to affect anything outside
of the bags under the eyes.
Conversely, if you
have selected an inappropriately large area, decrease the slider until
you have affected only the puffy area.
5. Experiment with
the Feather Radius slider. In some cases, feathering isnt
necessary. In this tutorial, I achieved the best results with no feathering
at all.
6. Click OK to apply
the filter to the first selection.
7. Using the lasso
tool, select the swollen area starting below the right corner of the left
eye and work your way around the area.
8. Repeat steps 4
and 5.
9. Experiment with
the Feather Radius slider. In some cases, feathering isnt
necessary. In this tutorial, I achieved the best results with no feathering
at all.
10. Click OK to apply
the filter. Heres your result!

Tips and Tricks
Do
Not Overuse Removal Strength
Overusing removal
strength will yield a completely blurred selection, wiping out any realistic
surface texture.
Removing
Large Quantities of Similar Blemishes
When removing a large
number similar facial blemishes or small defects from an image, use the
following technique to speed up your work:
- Run the filter
on an individual blemish.
- Select the remaining
blemishes.
- Use the filter
'redo' key (CTRL-F in Photoshop) to quickly remove the remaining spots.
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