You’ve heard of the old workhorse “copy and paste.” Well using the Clone Stamp Tool is really similar...but more magical...so, like a unicorn. To copy, hold down the Option key and click on the place in the image that you want to copy from. This creates an anchor point. Then, head to the place in the image where you want to paste. Use your mouse like a paint brush to paste. Photoshop uses the anchor point as a reference point when pasting. This is great for making things disappear. If you have a solid or forgiving-patterned background, like sand, you can copy an area of the background and paste it over an object in the image, basically making it disappear.

And for my next trick, I will make something disappear with only one click! I’m not talking about erasing something, that’s not magical. Erasing something just removes the pixels. I’m talking about “healing.” Imagine the bump on the starfish is a pimple on your face in an otherwise great picture of you. If I just used the Eraser Tool to erase the pimple, there would be a hole in your face. But with the Spot Healing Brush Tool, Photoshop magically erases just the pimple and leaves your face, blemish free. Tada!

Depending on the object in your image, making a selection around it can be as simple as one click with the Quick Selection Tool (if you’re lucky). But that’s definitely not always the case. If you’ve spent any time trying to cut out an image from it’s background, you know how hard this can be...and you also know that the Magic Eraser Tool is like a siren, luring you in with it’s easy-sounding name, and then trapping you in a terrible-looking cutout and pixels that you can’t get back. So let me introduce you to another option. With the Object Selection Tool you’re a click-hold-and-drag away from making a selection around an object within your image. Just draw a box around it. Pair this with a Layer Mask and you’re on your way to a beautiful cutout.

This one seems especially magical to me, mainly because I toiled over how to do something similar before the tool debuted. Playing with Hue Saturation Adjustment Layers just didn’t cut it. This tool is a brush that allows you to change the color of something on the Canvas by painting over it. Want to see what that shirt looks like in yellow?...Paint away! And if you make a selection around what you want to paint first (hint, hint, use the Object Selection Tool), Photoshop will only let you paint in that selection, providing a nice clean edge for you. If you had a hard time coloring in the lines as a kid, this workflow is for you. You can find the Color Replacement Tool nested with the Brush Tool.