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The Patch Tool is a different beast from the first two and it’s very useful for seamless blending of skin or other uniform surfaces. Let us say I want to remove the dark bags under the girl’s eyes. I could use the Spot healing Brush Tool but the Patch Tool offers an easier way. In the image below I selected the Patch Tool and created a selection as shown below. Now simply drag the selection a bit lower three times and release. This will create skin in the selected area based on the area from which we drag the selection. The whole process is easier done than said so it’s best that you try it and see for yourself.

You can see my results below. There is a subtle but noticeable difference but that’s what you will probably want when doing portrait retouching with Photoshop. On the other hand, let us say that you used the Spot Healing Brush Tool like crazy some parts look fake and don’t fit with the rest of the face. No problem. Select the troublesome area with the patch tool and drag and drop the selection a couple times in the surrounding good portions of the skin. There, problem solved. Again, these things are much more complicated to write than to do.

Finally, the Red Eye Tool requires you to select an iris with a red eye problem and it attempts to remove the redness in the pupil. Although there are more advanced ways to do that (with Curves or Channels) this tool does a pretty good job.