Photoshop Tutorial for Fashion Design (Part 8)
Retouching Tools, Darkroom Tools

Blur, Sharpen and Smudge tools are all from the brush family and use freehand brush stroke to apply various effects.

Blur tool blends the pixels creating a blur effect under the brush cursor. The strength of the effect increases every time you drag the cursor over the same area or if you hold the mouse in the same place. If you don’t want too much blurring to occur, try avoiding the affected areas. You can also soften the effect by reducing the strength in the option bar. And just like with any other brush, you can select from various modes and set your brush preferences. I often use this tool on the parts separated from the artwork on two different layers to soften the edges.

The Sharpen tool increases brightness and contrast between neighboring pixels. It is usually used for touch-ups. As a fashion designer, I use the tool to accent the edges or parts of an image. Just like with Blur tool, the strength of the effect increases every time you drag the cursor over the same area. Too much of this effect will distort the color and make your image look pixelated.

The Smudge tool picks colors from pixels under the cursor pointer and blends them into a new area as you drag the mouse. Just like working with wet paint. Finger Painting option in the option bar will start the smudge with foreground color.

The next group of tools is used to adjust lightness and saturation of your image using freehand brush strokes.

The Dodge tools mixes existing colors with white to make image lighter. First choose the range of colors to work on. Shadows: range of dark colors, midtones: for middle range of grays, and highlights: range of light colors. The effect will vary greatly depending on the color range you will work with. Adjust exposure settings to determine the strength of the effect. Then click and brush over the areas you want to lighten up.

The Burn tool mixes existing colors with black to make image darker and it has the same color range as Dodge tool. Adjust the settings in the option bar and brush over the desired area.

The Sponge tool is used to increase or decrease image saturation. I often use a combination of Dodge tool in the shadows range and Burn tool in the highlights range to create lights and shades effects in my artwork.