Inspiring

Question

PS 26.8.0 healing brush tool is worse than before

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
June 19, 2025
2 replies
527 views

Macbook Pro M1Max, Sequoia 15.1, PS 26.8.0, healing brush tool (command J)

I've started to see this in the last few versions, but it feels much worse now than before. And that is the healing brush tool not really working well. For years now it's been amazing. It's been in fact magic at fixing things like stains and hairs in tears in photographs. But today I'm working through hundreds of photos, and I'm reaching often for the clone stamp tool where I shouldn't need to.

Sometimes it's sampling from areas away from where I brush, not just adjascent. And sometimes it's just not doing anything at all in areas that should be easy. Like a hair in a dirt road. but it just doesn't do anything. Or a stain in a blown out sky, and it just doesn't do anything.

Sometimes if I brush back over the same spot a few times it will work, and sometimes not. I'm also seeing bluriness, and sampling from other areas.

Anyone else experiencing these kinds of things?

macOS

melissapiccone

Community Expert

We can't see your layers or your options bar - make sure everything is set correctly in the options bar and it's not something weird with a layer. Can you share a more complete sceenshot? You can also try resetting the preferences - it will reset everything for you.

Melissa Piccone | Adobe Trainer | Online Courses Author | Fine Artist

S

Scott_BFARAuthor

Inspiring

thanks Melissa. No layers in these files. I'm editing them flat. Just normal spot healing brush tool.

I've noticed that the spot healing brush tool seems to be getting worse, but that's hard to quanify. But the last couple of days I did a job that included some cleanup on over 500 old photos, so the issues started becoming very apparent. It was clear that spot healing with "content aware" was pulling from areas not just adjascent to the brush. Sometimes it would just blur the area brushed. Sometimes it would do nothing at all, repeatedly.

E

ExUSA

Legend

There ARE settings for the Spot Healing brush that can make a big difference- try changing between Content-Aware and Proximity Match, for example. The old Healing brush is better for blending (like a gradient) while Spot Healing is good for blemish removal. Changing the size and hardness can affect results quite a bit as well.

I toggle between Spot Healing, Healing. Clone Stamp at 100%, and Clone Stamp at a low opacity for blending.

L

LAMY2017

Legend

Scott, you may want to check the Use Legacy box (in yellow rectangle). UL allows you to select the area from which to clone.

This screenshot shows the settings that play a part in using the tool.

In past versions, I have experienced the situation where the Mode (in red square) was set to other than Normal, with unexpected and unwelcome results.

Larry

S

Scott_BFARAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks Larry. I'm actually using the spot healing brush tool, and use legacy is not an option. For the healing brush tool it is.

Adobe: Please note. Your software is getting worse, not better. You're going backwards now. I spent hours yesterday testing and downgrading both PS and LR CC. All this AI is ruining your software. This is not a step forward.

L

LAMY2017

Legend

Scott,you are right. Spot HB doesn't have a Legacy checkbox.

However, command-J calls six tools that all perform some type of healing --

Spot Healing Brush
Healing Brush
Remove
Patch
Content-Aware Move
Red Eye

command-J doesn't call Spot ("Here, Spot!") by default; it calls the last of the 6 healing tools used.

Your statement, "Sometimes it's sampling from areas away from where I brush, not just adjacent" is the behavior of Healing Brush, not Spot.

Spot doesn't sample from pixels away; it just does the healing in situ.

Healing Brush asks you to option-click to define source.

If you haven't refreshed the defined area from which to copy pixels, HB will appear to act randomly. It's not.

If SB is misbehaving on your system, reset Settings.

Larry

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