John Culleton writes:

The latest version of Photoshop is being praised for its improved tool for removing wrinkles etc. from a headshot. Can anyone evaluate this facility vis a vis the similar tools in Gimp, used for the same purpose?

I'm glad someone brought that up. A friend who just bought the latest OS X upgrade was raving about the "healing brush" and how wonderful it was. I asked him to describe it, and after hearing his description, I said "It sounds a like the clone tool with Mode set to something other than Normal", but I wasn't clear enough from his vague description exactly what that mode would be. He experimented and found a photoshop mode in their clone tool that seemed to do almost exactly the same thing (I've forgotten which mode), and agreed that it might be just an easier interface on something that was already possible.

Then I told that story to a graphic artist who also just upgraded to the new PS, and he said no no, healing brush was something new and wonderful and nothing like clone tool with a different mode. But you know how (some) artists are, it's impossible to get any specific information out of them, so I never did find out what was supposed to be so different.

It left me pretty curious. Anyone know what healing brush actually does? Is it something gimp's clone tool modes can't do?

...Akkana