touch up skin blemishes (rosacea, spots, etc...)

[paz1chat]

Hi there.

First, let me apologize for asking such a usual question but although I have searched a long time, I didn't find any satisfactory response.

I'm looking for the fast and good way to correct skin blemishes on a face-photo.

A tool quite useful, in ACDSee, is the "photo repair" one, with the "heal" option.
It gives a mix of "blur" and "clone" tools.

Which plugin or tool must I use in PDN ?

Is there a "blur brush" ?

Which method do you prefer ?

I'm bored with switching between PDN & ACDSee.

Thanks, a lot for the whole forum, plugins, and PDN developments..
 

[Ego Eram Reputo]

<moved to paint.net Discussion & Questions>

[Eli]

You can heal images with TR's Dodge and Burn. (And who knows, Mr Technorobbo may translate it to your language)

Edited January 7, 2016 by Eli

[MJW]

You might try:

 

Erase the blemish with the Eraser, usually with low Hardness.

Duplicate the layer.

Select the entire lower layer (Select All).

Use the Move Selected Pixels Tool to move the lower layer around a little till you find a region that fills in the erased area.

If necessary, adjust the Brightness/Contrast or Hue/Saturation of the lower layer for a better match.

Flatten the image.

 

You might erase multiple blemish before duplicating. In many cases, one positioning of the lower layer will remove most of them. Any that aren't, can be removed by repeating the process.

It may be better to duplicate the layer first, make the lower invisible (so you can see your erasure), then erase the blemish. That way, there will be no chance the edge of the erased region will prevent the lower layer from being moved into the best position

Instead of selecting the lower layer and using the Move Selected Pixels Tool, you  could use Layers>Rotate/Zoom.

 

This method is more complex than using Cloning and such, but I think it often looks better.

Edited January 7, 2016 by MJW

[Cc4FuzzyHuggles]

Hello. I personally like MJW's method as well.
 
But, here is a reply of other methods that I gave to someone else in another thread that you might be interested in...

If you haven't already seen the paint.net documentation, then I suggest you look over it. http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/MainWindow.html

Now, before you do anything to your image, you might want to duplicate the image (you don't want to do anything to the original in case of mistakes).

Then try using the clone stamp tool.
Here are some old, but helpful, videos about using the Clone Stamp Tool: Blemish Touch up,  Quick How to Use Clone Stamp, and Basics of Using the Clone Stamp Tool.
The videos might be old, but the clone stamp tool still works about the same. The main difference is the brush in the current paint.net has a soft/hardness (which is a good thing. You can make the brush's edge very soft for better blending). For older versions of paint.net, I don't know if you could get the source from another layer, but you can in the current paint.net. What I mean is, you can choose the clone stamp tool, click your source on your photo, then add a new layer, and start drawing/cloning. This feature is also mentioned in the documentation.

If you can't get the clone stamp tool to give you what you want, here is an alternative method : http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/19117-the-subterranean-copypaste-blues/
 
For some other ideas that haven't been mentioned,
There are some effects that can help to give an image an overall smoother appearance. So, if you want nice smooth skin try these :
Test out the Soften Portrait effect or Glow effect.
Play around with the Median effect (here's a video that uses median and other effects to retouch a photo).
Try the Surface Blur effect.
Try the Overblur plugin.

Edited January 8, 2016 by Cc4FuzzyHuggles