Photoshop 7’s patch tool is intended to make elements seamless, but you can also use it to add an ink-and-watercolor look to a photograph.
Because the healing brush tool only works on a single layer, the first step is to place two copies of the photo side by side on the same layer.We used the crop tool to enlarge the canvas (by zooming out, selecting the entire image with the crop tool, then dragging out one side beyond the original border), then held down the Option key and used the move tool to drag a copy over.
Convert one side to black-and-white 1. Select one side, desaturate it (Shift-Command-U), and choose Image >Adjustments >Threshold to remove shades of gray.
Choose the patch tool (which shares space in the toolbox with the healing brush) and select an area of the black-and-white version. (We selected the skin of the face and chest.) Shift-drag the selection over to the color side, matching the two as closely as possible.
The patch tool will bring the color information over to the black-and-white side and then make changes to the selection in an attempt to match its color and brightness to the background 2. Depending on the size of your selection, this step can be quite slow.
To tone down the patch effect and integrate the two parts, choose Edit > Fade Patch and reduce the opacity 3.
By default, Photoshop 7’s Brushes palette displays a stroke from each brush 1. To display the brush footprint, as earlier versions did, choose Small Thumbnail from the Brushes palette’s drop-down menu 2.
This article was last modified on January 3, 2023
This article was first published on November 13, 2002
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