Cloning

Duplicating one part of an image to remove unwanted items and fix blemishes

The techniques

The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.

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Open the image clone.jpj

A nice view of Ulswater in the English Lake District. Unfortunately there is that tree branch I missed when I took the photo. With digital imaging it is easy to remove stuff like this. Some people take a very purist attitude when it comes to removing the odd tree branch and say you should never do it. Well, I don't agree and rather than offend them I'll leave it at that :-)

Ulswater february

Rotate it and zoom so as to clearly view the whole picture.

The branch on the left hand side is distracting – it has to go. A simple approach might be to crop the image and lose it that way, but it can be removed quite easily.

First duplicate the background layer (This is important when working on the actual image so we do not work on the original – ALWAYS a copy).

Zoom right in to the area we want to remove

branch

Select the Clone Tool – with a brush size of 12 pixels

selecting the clone tool

A circular outline appears – this is the brush size.

Alt-click (option/alt key and click) on a bit of the cloudy sky, just to the right of the branch. Then click on a part of the branch – the sky is copied in. Now ‘paint’ out the rest of the branch (you only use the alt key when selecting the source area for the cloning)

losing the branch

And the branch is gone…

no more branch

Minor imperfections can spoil the best images. Using the clone tool to copy parts of the image can easily fix problems. Just be sure to make sure you are working on a duplicate layer so if you go wrong you have not spoilt the original. You can also use the history to move back a few steps, but note that each clone action is an item in the history and it only has a limited number of steps. The key to successful cloning is to select the correct source area for what you want to replace. Look for structure in images (ripples on water, cloud detail) and work with the 'grain'.

The techniques

The sample images for these tutorials are available for download as a zipped folder.

Feedback is always welcome! ---

Northlight Images also provides commercial photography training courses for businesses, including specialist Photography training for Estate Agents and for Product Photography.

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