Here's an unsightly wrinkle that we're simply going to take out (A). Keep in mind, the healing brush is quite forgiving. You don't need to worry about lining up your sample with your target, you don't need to be particularly precise. (B) shows a typical stroke that I might make, and the result (C). And after four or five similar strokes we arrive at (D).

The question could be raised, "Why use the healing brush for a shadow like this? Why not a dodge/burn layer?" As I will demonstrate, I make extensive use of dodge/burn layers to lighten and darken selective areas. However, unlike the healing brush, dodging and burning requires infinite patience and subtlety. And precision. Large imperfections like this wrinkle are among the first things that I'll attack, and I do it with the healing brush because it's fast. I can be sloppy. I basically scribble over the target area; maybe I'll draw circles, maybe half-moons. It doesn't matter. The healing brush responds to all of it and after a relatively short time, the gross imperfections suddenly become much less noticeable. And much more conducive to the refined shifts that dodging and burning provide.

Here's an unsightly wrinkle that we're simply going to take out (A). Keep in mind, the healing brush is quite forgiving. You don't need to worry about lining up your sample with your target, you don't need to be particularly precise. (B) shows a typical stroke that I might make, and the result (C). And after four or five similar strokes we arrive at (D).

The question could be raised, "Why use the healing brush for a shadow like this? Why not a dodge/burn layer?" As I will demonstrate, I make extensive use of dodge/burn layers to lighten and darken selective areas. However, unlike the healing brush, dodging and burning requires infinite patience and subtlety. And precision. Large imperfections like this wrinkle are among the first things that I'll attack, and I do it with the healing brush because it's fast. I can be sloppy. I basically scribble over the target area; maybe I'll draw circles, maybe half-moons. It doesn't matter. The healing brush responds to all of it and after a relatively short time, the gross imperfections suddenly become much less noticeable. And much more conducive to the refined shifts that dodging and burning provide.