P: Rotate spot removal tool

[Chiara1966]

Hello there, 

in my workflow I keep wishing I could rotate the spot removal tool in copy mode. Sometimes the source I pick is just perfect except that it would have to be rotated a bit to fit perfectly. How about that? 

[kalief64412696]

I sometimes need to swap eyes around, it would be super helpful if I could rotate a cloned spot to line up eyes better.  Thanks!

[Ian Lyons]

You've posted to the Lightroom Classic User to User forum. Best you submit your feature request at https://auth.getsatisfaction.com/auth/safari_redirect?company_domain=photoshop_family 

[josephlavine]

As Ian_Lyons mentioned, you are best to post in another area.  Here is another link to try.

https://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

There will always be some level of retouching that is best handled via other applications such as Adobe Photoshop.

[man24600933iq3l]

Can we rotate the adjustment brush mask in Adobe Lightroom?

[richardplondon]

Only move a mask around. You might try if you can "trick" this at least in increments of 90 degrees, by syncing local adjustments between images that are set to different 'camera orientation' rotations.

[johnrellis]

"You might try if you can "trick" this at least in increments of 90 degrees, by syncing local adjustments between images that are set to different 'camera orientation' rotations."

This won't have the intended effect. If you copy the adjustment between virtual copies with different rotations, the adjustment will stick with the same underlying pixels.  If you rotate the source photo and then export it as a TIFF and reimport the TIFF (thus "baking" the rotation into the actual pixels), then make the adjustment and copy it to the TIFF, the adjustment will be rotated on the TIFF, but it won't appear in the intended location with the same size.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-rotate-spot-removal-tool/idi-p/12943550

and change the title to "Rotate Spot Removals and Brushes".

[richardplondon]

[won't have the intended effect] - Yes, it was an unsatisfactory long shot! Brushed masks, as with spot removal, cannot be free-transformed.

[Fabrizio Giuffrida]

I would really welcome the possibility to flip, mirror or rotate cloned areas in the Heal panel. It would be extremely useful to have this function in Lightroom Classic without having to switch to Photoshop. This would also keep the workflow non-destructive as all edits would be written inside LR catalog (or XMP file) without having to create a PSD or TIF.

[Sean McCormack]

Gets my vote. I don't think we need a Clone Source panel or anything, but something that allowed rotation or flipping would be great. 

[JohanElzenga]

I'd say that the future of this tool -although not there yet- is in AI content aware healing, not in having to rotate the source or destination manually.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-rotate-spot-removal-tool/idi-p/12943550

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-rotate-spot-removal-tool/idi-p/12943550

[Fabrizio Giuffrida]

AI technology will be welcome when it will become available, but it's just a guess at the moment. Porting an existing technology from one application to another shouldn't require too much programming and may be possible in a short time.

Here are two real-life examples where flip / rotate / mirror technology is invaluable:

1. it is necessary to clone a portion of an object containing a curve or a line that moves away from the foreground: the perspective prevents a simple cloning, but a rotation of a few degrees allows to solve the problem easily;

2. a singer I photographed for his new record suffered an eye injury so the eyelids no longer have the natural profile. When he is on stage no one notices it, but in the photo it is clearly visible, and I am asked to retouch it. The simplest and most effective solution is to clone the other eye, mirror it and then rotate it slightly to adapt it to the inclination of the face and the slight asymmetry that every human face has.

All this can already be done today by switching from Lightroom Classic to Photoshop, but this slows down the workflow and forces me to have a 200+ mb TIF file next to the original 40 mb RAW file, while this is a simple retouching, which does not require complex techniques or dozens of levels.

It would be much easier and more effective if it could be done within Lightroom Classic. Moreover, a Lightroom competitor that I will not mention recently introduced a similar feature in its application, so this is feasible.

[richardplondon]

"porting existing technology from one application to another" - this is a matter of what's behind the scenes as well as what's on the surface. For example, MS Word can show a table of numbers, and MS Excel can show a table of numbers. But for Word to be able to do the same calculations using those numbers, as Excel does: this is non trivial to port across. Even the addressing of any given cell within this table, will be fundamentally different in nature. Or the distinction between a number 12 and some text "12" is not there. PS and LrC both show picture information and let you change how it looks - but not by remotely comparable means 'under the hood'; hence the utterly different toolsets available.