|
If you use Photoshop Elements or an earlier version of Photoshop and have no Healing Brush or Patch tool to rely on, you may find the Clone Stamp a helpful tool.
The Clone Stamp duplicates content from one place and lets you click and place it one or more times in the image, covering existing content (thus the term stamp in the tool's name). The Clone Stamp tool doesn't match the stamped content to the surrounding pixels in the target area. If you stamp green grass on a blue couch, you get green grass on a blue couch — you don't get a blue, grassy texture on a blue couch.
To use the Clone Stamp, follow these steps. These steps apply to Photoshop Elements, but other image editors use a similar process:
1. Verify the layer that you're in, making sure that the layer containing the content you want to clone is highlighted in the Layer palette.
You can switch to another layer later when you stamp the content onto the image.
2. Click the Clone Stamp tool in the Tool palette to activate it.
The Options bar (as shown in Figure 1) appears, offering several settings that you can tweak to control how you apply the tool, including
Figure 1: The Clone Stamp's Options bar.
• Brush: This pop-up palette at the left side of the Options bar contains the brush styles you set for painting, erasing, or using any brush-applied tool. Pick a brush from the palette based on your target area, going for a size that's just a bit smaller than the area you want to stamp over. You don't want to leave an obvious edge to a single stamping of content. With two or more stamps in the area, you can avoid a clumsily pasted look.
• Mode: After you paste the cloned content, you can choose a mode to control how the pixels merge. Normal Mode works for most jobs, but you may want to experiment.
• Opacity: If you want to see through your stamped content, reduce the opacity from the default 100%.
• Aligned: This setting keeps the same distance/offset between the sampled spot (where you click the Alt key on a PC, or Option key on the Mac) and the stamped area. If you leave this setting off (the default), the cloned location keeps changing as you move your mouse and continue stamping.
• Use All Layers: If you want your cloning and stamping to use and affect your image as it appears when you can see all the layers, select this option. It's unchecked (off) by default, just so you don't make more of an impact on your entire image than you want.
After you customize the tool, you're ready to clone and stamp.
3. To clone the spot that you want to use to cover unwanted content, hold down Alt (Option key on a Mac) while you click the spot that you want to clone.
The mouse pointer changes when you're in Clone Mode, and a crosshair appears in the center of your brush point.
4. Release the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) and apply the cloned content by clicking to cover the unwanted content.
The Clone Stamp can also remove dust spots and other artifacts from your digital photo.
| 
