| After using the Rubber Stamp tool to "erase" the nuts on the cake, you may notice some rough areas where you used the tool. You can use either the Smudge or Blur tool to smooth the edges. The Smudge tool smears adjacent pixel colors. Imagine two colors of wet paint on a wall. If you drag your finger from one color of paint to the other, the first color of paint blends into the other color. The harder you press on the paint, the more color is smeared into the other color. The Smudge tool works the same with pixels you can click and drag to smear one color area into another. You have pressure, edge softness, and size controls to aid you in fine-tuning the image. Using your september.png file, you will use the Smudge tool to smooth the icing on the cake. 1. | Choose the Smudge tool from the Tools panel.
Hold down the Blur tool to see the other tools in this tool group. The tools in this group are Blur, Sharpen, Dodge, Burn, and Smudge. You might want to set your document magnification to 200% to make it easier to see the details in the image as you use this tool.
 | 2. | Change the settings for the tool in the Property inspector. For example, change the size to 10, the edge softness to 30, and the pressure to 15.
You may need to adjust these settings as you use the tool on your image. The higher the Pressure setting, the more the color is blended into the new area.
 | 3. | Drag in the areas of the image you want to smooth.
Look for areas of the icing that contain different colors and drag in those areas. Just as you would use a knife to smooth icing on a cake, you can use the Smudge tool to blend the pixels in the image. The icing doesn't need to be one continuous color. Try making swirling motions, just as you would if you were icing a cake.
You might want to experiment with the Blur tool on your image if you notice hard edges after using the Clone or Smudge tool. The Blur tool decreases the contrast between neighboring pixels. As with the Smudge tool, you can control the size and softness of the tool as well as the intensity of blur on the image. You set these controls in the Property inspector after selecting the tool from the Tools panel.
| 4. | Save and then close your file.
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