P: More Photoshop like clone/healing/content aware brushes

[ratz2]

More Photoshop like clone/healing brushes in Lightroom!
I love retouching in Photoshop, especially with the content aware fill with the healing tool, but Lightrooms tools are clunky. I don't know if there are technical limitations to implementing tools like Photoshop's in Lightroom but it would be GREAT!
I would rather be able to get a baseline retouched image in Lightroom than having to edit in Photoshop and then come back to Lightroom. I would rather just use Photoshop for image alterations.

[Butch_M]

I'm all for any improvements that could be offered in this area as well ... the more I can do in Lr natively ... the better ...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yes, yes, yes.

That is the most urgent upgrade wishlist item for LR. If LR wants to be an 80/20 application then it needs to improve support for retouching. Abusing the spot removal tool only goes so far.

Yes, there is some integration between LR and other editing programs (in particular with PS and smart objects), but being forced to use two applications instead of one is suboptimal. Here's why:

1. I don't want to pay for PS. It may be worth it for graphic designers and professionals but to an amateur enthusiast the price tag is way too high for what I need from it.
2. I don't want the destructive editing paradigm. I know I can use (adjustment) layers, etc. but LR's solutions for making later tweaks to editing operations works better for me so why should I adopt the PS way when I don't need it for my editing requirements?
3. I don't want to run LR & PS in parallel on my machine. One of them on their own is sufficiently resource hungry.
4. I don't want the workflow that creates two versions of an image; one pre-edited in LR to be imported by PS and another exported by PS with potential post-edits in LR. There is no seamless editing history in one place anymore.

The last bullet (4.) is the most important one for me. I feel that anything else but integrated editing is a workaround with disadvantages.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

BTW, there are no technical barriers. Of course an efficient implementation is a challenge but the guys that pulled off lens corrections (with its required warping of brush strokes and spot removal applications) can do this as well.

[areohbee]

Up near the top of my wish list for Lr4 too.

[Ian Lyons]

Rob,

A word of advice I was given a long time back by an Adobe insider - be selective about which features you openly pick as your favourites. Same insider once asked a group of us to identify 10 features that we would most want to have in Camera Raw (before Lr came into being). I think we ended up with around 15 to 20 unique features. All have been implemented, but it took 4 or 5 years and 3 versions to get there. Anyway, as things stand, "you" have dozens, if not hundreds in the UtoU feature request list. Now you're at the same thing here. Every time you add a "me too" you risk diluting the importance of others. Remember, there's a finite amount of engineering time.

Ask yourself - If I could only submit 10 feature requests, what would they be? Rank them in order of importance. Explain why they're important, how you see them working, etc.

So, be smart. If you've nothing useful to add just hit the "I like this idea!' button and move on. The count goes up, and that's all that really matters.

[areohbee]

Thanks for the tip Ian - I'll keep it in mind.

[Sean McCormack]

I'm all for content aware in Lightroom.. and for non circular healing and cloning!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks for supporting this, Sean.

AFAIC, it makes sense to distinguish between "spot healing" (no source required) and "source/destination healing" (PS' healing brush) and having both retouching operations would be ideal.

But what is the difference between "patching" and "source/destination healing"? PS has two different tools for this so there should be a difference. I'm not a PS user but what I gather from information available on the net, I reckon the only difference is how you make a selection. With a healing brush one "paints" the selection and with a patch tool one draws the outline of the selection. Is that correct?

If so, and if patching were supported then it would make sense to allow the "patch selection style" for other adjustments (as addressed by the adjustment brush) as well.

[Lee Jay]

Both use a source, it's just that one (spot) sets the source automatically and one (brush) forces you to set it manually. Both essentially paint the "area", not the outline, though the spot tool only shows the outline while you are still painting.

Well, that's for Elements, anyway, as I don't have CS.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Very well stated. My poor computer struggles under LR by itself, and the more healing brush points I add, the worse the performance gets. Having to open a second application reduces performance even more since both applications must be open in order for the edited photo to be re-imported back to LR. Additionally, making external edits renders the "Paste Settings from Previous" feature useless since the external edits are not captured in the LR edit history.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would gladly pay MORE for LR with content-aware fill and a good clone/stamp tool than have to open up TWO applications.

I have Elements, but when you run it, it's a CPU hog. It always launches a sub-process that scours my HDD looking for faces in photos to tag. I don't need that feature but my poor CPU and HDD are busily chewing up resources when all I want to do is make a minor fix.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

With the LR spot-healing tool, is there REALLY a difference between the Clone and Heal options?? I've tried both, and they both seem to do the exact same thing. It appears to me that this is just a spot-CLONE tool in that it copies over whatever is inside it's sample circle verbatim. I can't see any "healing" at all.

Also, you can't mix modes on the retouch. Whatever the selection between clone/heal is, is applied to ALL spot healing points on the photo, not just the one selected.

[Lee Jay]

"With the LR spot-healing tool, is there REALLY a difference between the Clone and Heal options??" Yes.

"Whatever the selection between clone/heal is, is applied to ALL spot healing points on the photo, not just the one selected. " Not true at all.

[Lee Jay]

"It always launches a sub-process that scours my HDD looking for faces in photos to tag."

Just launch the editor, and not the organizer.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would really like to see a clone/stamp tool in LR. That circle brush for spot healing just doesn't cut it when it comes to needing to do blend edits on a photograph.
Let me pick a source spot on the photo and then "paint" with the healing brush while it samples the source location. This feature is in your other products, let it be in Lightroom too!

Thank you.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'd like to see some examples. I can't tell a difference.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hmm.. I seem to have two profiles now...

[Lee Jay]

One heals, one clones, one has a soft feather, one has a harder edge.

[bcdavis1975]

This is a no-brainer

[ratz2]

I want Lightroom to have exactly what Photoshop has.
In Photoshop I use both Healing with Content Aware Fill on and Clone Stamp tool depending on what I need. Usually use Healing and if I can't get the correct results with that I go to Clone Stamp and adjust to get what I need manually.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Keeping my fingers crossed this will receive "Under Consideration" status....

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Adding layers and / or adding a brush action to spot removal would make develop even more user friendly.

[areohbee]

I like the idea of being able to brush in or out any adjustment we might choose to make, including dust spot removal, although if the distraction removal tool is changed to be handled as a brush instead of a circle, then its maybe not so necessary, although I can still imagine it... (e.g. brushing opacity changes after the distraction removal stroke has been layed down)..

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Maybe we don't need an additional "layers" concept if we could have the option of looking at either a chronological history (i.e., what is currently implemented) or an "essential history". Have a look at an example for such an essential history which is basically a list of logically grouped edit actions.

Layers would go beyond that in that one could adjust, say the exposure of both a brush stroke set and a graduate filter in a synchronised fashion, but I'm not sure this is really needed all that often. If there really is a large support for layers, however, I still think they would gel well with something along the lines of an essential edit history.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Maybe we don't need an additional "layers" concept if we could have the option of looking at either a chronological history (i.e., what is currently implemented) or an "essential history". Have a look at an example for such an essential history which is basically a list of logically grouped edit actions.

Layers would go beyond that in that one could adjust, say the exposure of both a brush stroke set and a graduate filter in a synchronised fashion, but I'm not sure this is really needed all that often. If there really is big support for layers, however, I still think they would gel well with something along the lines of an essential edit history.