Sensor dust, a spot on someone's chin, a power line across a clean sky, a crisp packet on the grass. Small things like these pull your eye away from the photo. The Heal tool fills them from another part of the frame, on your iPhone.
Remove a spot
- Open the photo, tap edit, and choose Heal. It sits between Masks and Crop.
- Pinch with two fingers to zoom in on the spot. While Heal is open, one finger works on the photo, and two fingers zoom and move around.
- Set Size a little bigger than the spot.
- Tap the spot.
A solid circle marks the spot. A dashed circle marks the source, which is the place Chobial copies from. A line joins the two circles. Chobial picks a nearby source that looks like the area around the spot. So most of the time there's nothing more to do.
Dust or a smudge on the lens shows most in skies and on white walls. Zoom in and move slowly across the photo. A spot that's easy to miss on screen is easy to see in a print.
Paint over a wire or a line
- Zoom in and set Size a little wider than the wire.
- Drag along the wire with one finger. A drag makes a stroke instead of a spot.
- Chobial fills the stroke from a stroke of the same shape next to it. Check the result along the whole length.
A long wire is easier in two or three shorter strokes. If the wire crosses a roof edge or a branch, stop the stroke there. Start a new one on the other side. Then each stroke has to match only one kind of background.
Fix a heal that looks wrong
If you can see a heal, it usually copied from the wrong place, like a patch of darker sky or the edge of a cloud. Tap the heal to pick it. Then you can do any of these things:
- Drag the dashed circle to a better source with the same texture. For Clone, the source also needs the same brightness.
- Drag the heal itself to move it. Its source stays where it is.
- Raise Feather if you can see the heal's edge. Lower Feather for a clone that has to keep a sharp line.
- Lower Opacity to soften a blemish instead of removing it. On skin, a softer blemish can look more natural.
- Remove Heal (or Remove Clone) deletes the spot you picked. Remove All clears every heal and clone on the photo.
Size, Feather and Opacity apply to the spot you picked, and to the next one you make.
Starting points
- Sensor dust in a sky: Heal, Feather 50%, Opacity 100%.
- A spot on skin: Heal, Feather 60–80%, Opacity 70–100%.
- Wire across a sky: Heal, Feather 50%, Opacity 100%.
- Something on a brick or tiled wall: Clone, Feather 20–30%, Opacity 100%.
When to use Clone
Heal keeps the source's texture, but it takes its light and colour from around the spot. That's why Heal blends into skin, sky and walls. Near a hard edge, the light changes suddenly across the spot, so Heal smears the edge.
Clone copies the source exactly as it is. Use Clone where a line or a pattern has to continue through the spot. A mortar line, the edge of a roof or a railing are good examples. Line up the dashed circle so the pattern in the source carries on the pattern around the spot.
While a spot is picked, tap Heal or Clone to switch that spot to the other mode. That way you can try both.
Heal and Clone are made for small things, such as dust, spots, a wire, a stray hair or a sign in the corner. You can remove a large object, like a person, with several strokes and careful sources, but it's slow work. A crop is often the better answer.
Good to know
- Heals go on right after the photo is developed, before the film's grain. So a healed patch has the same grain as the rest of the photo.
- Chobial keeps heals against the whole, uncropped photo, like masks. Cropping, straightening or changing the film leaves them on the dust you put them on.
- Every heal is one step in Undo, at the bottom left of the photo.
- Tap Compare for a before-and-after slider. Hold Compare to see the photo without its edits. Hold the Heal tab to see the photo without the heals.
Heal and clone are free to try. Saving or sharing a photo with them needs Chobial Pro. Without Pro, the photo still saves for free, but without the heals and clones.
Because every photo keeps its original, you can also develop an old photo again in a new film and clean it up here. For a dark face, see Light: fix a dark face.