Retouching  

What can I do here?
You can copy focused areas from the manually selected source images to the resulting image.
You can clone any areas on resulting image from one place to another.

What do I do next?
Switch to Saving tab  to save the output image to disk, email or print it.

How to use retouching brushes to remove artifacts?

Sometimes the program creates artifacts on the final image. Usually it is halo around bright edges on the smooth background.

Source image with
well focused object		 Final image with artifacts Partially fixed final images

To fix such kind of problem use Copy source brush . Select the source image where the object is focused and copy pixels to the resulting image to delete artifacts.
Undo: keep Shift pressed to paint with Erase changes brush.

In many cases the program does not have enough information to construct the perfect image: object on the foreground masks objects behind it (see leftmost image below).

The object on the background
 is focused		 The object on the foreground
 is focused		 Resulting image with small
artifact  (pointed by green arrow)		 Cloning applied to fix the problem  
 

In this case the only solution is to apply Clone brush to reconstruct missing details. Undo: keep Shift pressed to paint with Erase changes brush.

Shortcuts:

Use Right mouse button to switch to the source image and to drag the image.

+ Use Left mouse button and Shift key to erase changes.

Use Mouse wheel to change brush size.

Common parameters:

Brush size slider defines the size of the brush in pixels.

Brush hardness  slider defines the form of the brush edge.

Edge sensitivity slider makes the brush smarter: the mouse pointer is changed to double circle (), the effect is applied to external circle only if the color is similar to those in the internal circle.

On the following image  the left point was made with this option, the right one without edge detection.

 

Brushes:

Clone brush

The clone brush lets you copy part of the image from "source" to "target" area. 
After you have chosen the clone brush, you will see the mouse pointer as the green cross in the green circle ().
Simply click the image to select the source area. Once you've selected the source area, the mouse pointer changes to its usual circle form () to select the target area and apply the brush.

  

  +   Use   Ctrl+Left click  to set the new source area. This can also be done by pressing Clone new area button.

 

Copy source brush

This brush lets you copy the same area from one of the source images to the resulting image.

If you see artifact on the resulting image, you can choose the source image where this area is well focused and copy the area to the output. 

Erase changes brush

This brush is designed to selectively erase the effect of the previous brushes.  You can restore the pixels to the state they were before retouching.

If you are painting with other brushes and want to remove only some strokes, keep Shift pressed to paint with Erase changes brush.

 

To show or  hide Help panel of Helicon Focus use button from the toolbar or View->Help panel command in the main menu.