How to Use the Healing Brush Tool in Photoshop

Finding the Healing Brush Tool and Setting Up

The Healing Brush Tool is nested under the Spot Healing Brush in the toolbar. Create a new layer first, then set Sample in the options bar to Current & Below (or All Layers); on Current Layer the tool has nothing to read from an empty layer and does nothing. Working on a new layer means you can erase or toggle the retouch later without touching the original.

Sample, Then Paint with the Healing Brush Tool

Hold Alt (Option on Mac) and click a clean area to set your sample point, then paint over the blemish. The Healing Brush takes the texture from where you sampled and the color from where you paint, so sample close to the problem: cheek texture painted onto a forehead looks wrong even when the color blends perfectly.

Healing Brush Tool vs. Spot Healing Brush vs. Clone Stamp

The Spot Healing Brush picks its own sample point, which is faster, but it sometimes grabs texture from the wrong part of the face. When that happens, switch to the Healing Brush and choose the source yourself. The Clone Stamp, by contrast, copies pixels exactly with no blending, so a sample from a dark area painted into a light area shows up as a dark patch. Healing blends; cloning copies.

Brush Settings and Pressure

The Healing Brush Tool’s brush picker sets size, hardness, and spacing, and you can flatten the brush into a thin oval for narrow areas like an eyelid. The square brackets change size on the fly. With a tablet, pen pressure controls size, so a single click won’t fill the whole circle; with a mouse, make the brush a little larger than the blemish and click once.

Clone Source Overlay

The Clone Source panel (the folder-and-stamp icon) has a Show Overlay option that previews the sampled texture under your cursor before you paint. If the texture is wrong, resample; if it’s right, paint. Aaron keeps it turned on.

Mode, Source, Aligned, and the Rest

Leave the Healing Brush Tool’s Mode on Normal; blend modes like Multiply or Screen only work on a pixel layer, and you get the same result non-destructively by changing the new layer’s blend mode instead. Source should be Sampled rather than Pattern. Aligned keeps the sample point moving in step with your brush, which is what you want most of the time; uncheck it only to stamp the same source repeatedly. Ignore Adjustment Layers stops a Curves layer from being baked into the heal; Aaron usually leaves it unchecked. Diffusion controls how the edge blends, and a setting of 4 works for most jobs.

Healing Brush Tool Quick Reference

• New layer + Sample: Current & Below before you start.
• Alt / Option + click sets the sample point; sample close to the blemish.
• Healing blends texture and color; Clone Stamp copies exactly.
• Show Overlay in Clone Source previews the texture before you paint.
• Mode: Normal, Aligned: on, Diffusion: 4 are Aaron’s defaults.
• [ and ] resize the brush.