The patch tool is similar to the Healing brush and is located underneath it in their toolbar menu. The patch tool allows you to do the same basic function of blending pixels from one area into another area except in a different fashion.

First (with the tool selected) you make a selection around an area and then drag it to another area to replace either the source or destination pixels (depending on your choice in the options bar).

With source selected I’m making a selection of the eye and then dragging the patch selection over to the middle of the forehead.   Now the forehead will be patched into the eye. Remember that with ‘Source’ selected that wherever you drag the patch will bring those pixels into the selected area aka the source.

Here I'm patching the other eye.

You can easily take this into sick jokes, etc. My eyes, my eyes...

Whenever you have a selection remember that you can Ctrl/Cmd ‘D’ to deselect

or choose deselect from the Select menu..if you don’t it will most likely screw a lot of things up.

Using the snapshot tool, I’ve created different ‘captures’ of the document at different times and I can switch to and work on from there with any of them.

The original is on the top.

You can toggle through your different snapshots or the history palette itself by dragging the slider down.

Ok, this is just sick isn’t it. Imagine what you can do. But it is a good example...

With the Patch tool on destination you can drag your original patch to where you want it to put the patch right there.

You can see this clearly with the images as shown: the eye is patched onto the destination of the forehead.

Here with the patch tool on destination, I can drag a portion of the forehead to the cheekbone (for example purposes).     When retouching you’ll want to look for good areas to replace the worse areas (..basic photoshop).

For a clean up job, take a good portion such as this and move it to the area you want to patch (on destination). This tool is also such a miracle worker for quick touchup jobs. And just think...most people don’t know how to do something like this or have any idea how easy it is actually.

But since you paid for Photoshop and now know how to do this. You can charge them based on time by doing this quick and then spending time mastering the pen tool (haha I’m not officially endorsing this).

Here is another example.  With patch on 'destination' just drag a good portion to cover an area that needs work.

In Photoshop CS you now get a preview when you drag the patch around of the forthcoming patch when on source. On destination you just drag your patch to another area.

For mastery of Photoshop itself; it's going to take dedication and some comprehensive training.  You're not going to find free complete training anywhere.  Take a look at my Photoshop CS video tutorials training to help you reach your Photoshop and digital imaging goals.

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