Retouch
The Retouch button in the Develop view header opens a spot-removal brush. It’s designed for small fixes — dust on the sensor, a stray piece of debris on a leaf, a tiny blown highlight — not for major content removal.
What it does
Section titled “What it does”The retouch tool samples pixels from a clean nearby area and paints them over wherever you brush. It’s a content-aware spot-healing brush, similar to the one in Lightroom or Photoshop. Strokes are editable inside the retouch session — undo, redo, or reset — but once you Apply and save the result, the retouched pixels are baked into the saved file.
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”Common macro photography use cases:
- Sensor dust that appears as small dark spots in the background.
- Stray debris — a hair, a fiber, a speck of pollen — on the subject or background that you didn’t notice at the time.
- Blown highlights from flash specularity — a tiny white spot on a wet surface, for example.
- Sharpening artifacts from earlier in your edit — a small halo or ring.
For larger content removal (a whole leaf in the background, a distracting branch), use a dedicated raster editor like Photoshop after saving a TIFF.
The retouch flow
Section titled “The retouch flow”- Click Retouch in the Develop view header. The center canvas swaps to the retouch editor.
- Adjust the Brush size in the toolbar to match the blemish you want to fix.
- Click the blemish. The tool samples a clean area nearby and paints it in.
- Repeat for additional spots.
- Click Apply to commit, or Cancel to discard.
Toolbar controls
Section titled “Toolbar controls”| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Brush | Sets the brush size. Match the size to the blemish — a touch larger is fine; much larger and you’ll affect surrounding clean pixels. |
| Undo | Undo the last retouch stroke. |
| Redo | Re-apply an undone stroke. |
| Reset | Clear all retouch strokes; return to the original image. |
| Cancel | Exit the retouch editor and discard all strokes. |
| Apply | Commit retouch strokes to the result. |
Zoom and pan
Section titled “Zoom and pan”The retouch editor inherits the same zoom/pan controls as the rest of Develop view:
- Scroll to zoom centered on the cursor.
- Double-click to reset zoom to fit.
- Right-click drag or Alt + left-drag to pan when zoomed.
Zoom in to 100% (or higher) before retouching small spots — at fit-to-window zoom, you’ll oversize the brush and affect surrounding pixels you didn’t mean to.
- Zoom in first. Retouching at fit zoom is imprecise. Zoom to at least 100% before placing strokes.
- One blemish per click. Lots of small clicks are easier to undo than one large area.
- If the result looks weird, the algorithm sampled from a poor source area. Undo and try again — different click positions can produce different samples.
- Don’t over-retouch. Tiny specks are part of macro photography. Removing them when they’re not distracting is busywork; focus on the ones that pull your eye away from the subject.
See also
Section titled “See also”- Develop overview
- Saving — your retouch is baked into the saved file.