Soften one line, keep the face

A spot can be replaced from one quiet patch. A line crosses changing tone and direction, so one large heal is likely to transplant the wrong plane of the face. This opening uses the same real patch-matched brush, but the working method is a sequence of small presses whose sample rings stay on comparable skin.

The twelve-per-cent texture layer settles the seams without flattening the whole face. It is deliberately below the general skin preset: the job here is to reduce contrast in a line, not to remove evidence that skin has structure.

Opening setup

Brush

Live, one press per short segment

Skin texture

12%

Tone evening

0%

Export

The operation list is replayed at full resolution

• Do not cross an eyelid, lip edge or nostril with one heal; the sample ring will import the feature it touches.
• Deep expression folds carry shape as well as texture. Removing them entirely changes facial structure, which this tool does not attempt.
• At ordinary viewing size, a line should still exist faintly. If it disappears at 200% zoom, the edit is already stronger than it needs to be.

• Spots and blemishesOpens with the heal brush in hand and the region already over the face.
• Skin smoothingOpens with the skin layer at 25 per cent, which leaves three-quarters of the texture.
• Flash red-eyeLooks for red pupils as soon as a picture opens, in the eyes it found, and asks first.
• How far is too farWhere the caps sit, why they are there, and what the distance readout is measuring.