Retouch photos with the brush, heal and clone tools
Paint, erase, spot heal, clone and dodge or burn, with brush size, hardness, opacity, flow, smoothing and pen pressure explained.
Intermediate5 min readUpdated 25 September 2026Editor · Retouch
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These are the hands-on tools for fixing and painting on photos: removing spots and stray hairs, copying texture over a distraction, lightening eyes, or painting on a mask. Knowing what each setting does saves a lot of undoing.
The tools and their keys
- B
- Brush
- E
- Eraser
- J
- Spot heal
- Shift+J
- Remove object (switches within the heal group)
- S
- Clone stamp
- O
- Dodge (lighten)
- Shift+O
- Burn (darken), then Sponge (saturation)
- [ and ]
- Make the brush smaller or larger
- 1 to 0
- Brush, eraser or clone opacity: 1 is 10%, 0 is 100%
- Alt+click
- Clone stamp: choose where to copy from
Remove object uses an AI model on your device and is covered in AI on this device.
Brush settings in the options bar
| Setting | Tools | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Size | All brush tools | Diameter in pixels, 1 to 1000. [ and ] change it in steps of about a fifth. |
| Hardness | All except Spot heal and Remove object | How crisp the edge is. 100% is a sharp edge, 0% fades gently to nothing. |
| Opacity | Brush, Eraser, Clone stamp | The most one stroke can lay down. Going over the same spot in one stroke never exceeds it. |
| Flow | Brush, Eraser, Clone stamp | How much each dab lays down. Low flow builds up gradually as you keep painting over an area within one stroke. |
| Smoothing | Brush, Eraser | Makes the stroke trail the pointer slightly, which steadies shaky lines. |
| Pen size | All brush tools | With a pen, pressure changes the size. On by default. |
| Pen opacity | Brush, Eraser | With a pen, pressure changes how much paint goes down. |
Opacity and Flow together: think of Opacity as the ceiling for a stroke and Flow as how quickly you reach it. For soft, controllable build-up, such as shading or painting a mask around hair, set Opacity high and Flow low (10 to 30%).
Pen settings only react to a real pen or stylus. A mouse or finger always paints at full pressure. The lightest touch still paints at 15% of the size, so strokes never vanish.
Brush and Eraser
The Brush paints in the main colour. If you start painting while a photo layer is selected, the Editor adds a new layer for your strokes first, so the photo underneath stays untouched. If a text or shape layer is selected, painting also goes onto a new layer.
The Eraser removes pixels from the selected image layer. For anything you may want to undo later, use a mask instead: the same Brush and Eraser then show and hide the layer without deleting anything. The options bar says Painting on the mask: Brush shows, Eraser hides. while you are on a mask. See Masks.
If there is a selection, every brush tool only paints inside it. That is the easiest way to keep a stroke off an edge.
Spot heal
Spot heal is for small things: spots, dust, a stray hair, a sensor mark. Paint over the spot (the stroke shows in pink while you paint) and let go. The Editor looks around the spot for a clean patch of similar texture, matches its colour to the surroundings and blends it in with a soft edge.
- Make the brush just bigger than the blemish and dab rather than paint long strokes. Several small fixes look better than one big one.
- It works on the pixels of the selected image layer only, not on the layers above or below.
- If the painted area is too big or too close to the edge of the image, the Editor says That area is too large or too close to the edge to heal. Try a smaller spot, or use Remove object.
Clone stamp
Clone stamp copies pixels from one place to another. Use it where Spot heal guesses wrong, such as along a straight edge or a repeating pattern, because you choose exactly what gets copied.
- Press S for the Clone stamp.
- Hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and click the area you want to copy from. A marker shows the source on the canvas.
- Paint over the area you want to cover.
Each new stroke starts copying from the source point again, keeping the same offset for the length of that stroke. If you click without a source, the Editor reminds you: Hold Alt (Option) and click to choose where to copy from. Like Spot heal, it copies from the selected layer only. Lower Hardness so the copied patch blends at its edges.
Dodge, burn and sponge
- Dodge (lighten) brightens where you paint. Burn (darken) darkens.
- Both have a Range (Shadows, Midtones or Highlights) that limits which tones they affect, and an Exposure that sets how strong each stroke is.
- Sponge (saturation) has Desaturate and Saturate modes and a Flow setting.
Keep Exposure low (10 to 20%) and build up with several strokes. Dodging the whites of the eyes on Highlights, or burning the edges of a portrait on Midtones, looks natural at low strength and fake at high strength.
Work non-destructively
Heal, clone, dodge, burn and sponge all change the pixels of the layer you are on. To keep a way back:
- Duplicate the photo layer with Ctrl+J (Cmd+J on a Mac) and retouch the copy. Hide it to compare.
- If your design already has several layers, use Layer > Stamp visible to new layer (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E) to make one merged layer to retouch, since these tools only see one layer.
- Undo steps are listed in the History panel, and you can save a version at any time with Ctrl+Alt+S. See History and undo.
Common problems
- Nothing happens when I paint. The layer may be locked; the Editor says This layer is locked. Unlock it to paint. Or you may be on an adjustment layer, in which case your strokes paint its mask.
- My photo lost its scale or rotation handles. Painting on an image layer that has been scaled or rotated turns that transform into pixels first, so the paint lines up. Duplicate first if you still need to resize it cleanly.
- The stroke stops at an invisible line. There is a selection. Press Ctrl+D to deselect.
- Heal or clone copies nothing. They read the selected layer only. If that layer is empty (a new layer you just added), select the photo layer instead.
On a phone or tablet
On a phone, open the Select tab, tap More tools and choose a tool; a Done pill appears on the canvas. With a pen on a tablet, turn on Touch mode in Edit > Preferences… so fingers pan and zoom while the pen paints. See Designing on a phone.