Cloning and Healing

One of the most venerable and practical tools in all of Photoshop is the Clone Stamp, which duplicates portions of an image. After you select the tool ” which you can do by pressing the S key ” press the Alt key (or Option on the Mac) and click in the image window to specify the portion of the image you want to clone. This portion of the image is termed the source point . Then paint with the tool to copy colors from that source point to another part of the image.

Closely related to the Clone Stamp tool is the Healing Brush, which clones multiple attributes of an image at a time. Press J to select the tool. Then, as with the Clone Stamp, Alt+click in the image (or Option+click on the Mac) to set the source of the clone. Note that the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush share a common source point, so setting the source for one tool sets it for both. Drag with the Healing Brush to mix the texture from the source point with the highlights, shadows, and colors of pixels that neighbor the brushstroke. The Spot Healing Brush, which as stated is new to Photoshop CS2, heals the same way the Healing Brush does, but without the Alt+click (or Option+click). It's a simpler tool designed for healing small spots, as its name implies.

The Clone Stamp tool

It's a good idea to start out with a brief examination of the simpler of the two tools, the Clone Stamp. Although easy to use, it can be a little tricky at first. If you just start dragging, Photoshop warns you that you must first define a source point. It says so in no uncertain terms, and won't allow you to proceed without letting Photoshop know what pixels you want to clone and use as restorative material for the rip, tear, scratch, or unwanted content in your image.

How cloning works

To clone part of an image, Alt+click (Option+click on the Mac) in the image window to specify a point of reference in the portion of the image you want to clone. Then release the Alt or Option key and click or drag with the tool in some other region of the image to paint a cloned spot or line. In Figure 2-2, for example, the bird was clicked with the Alt (Option) key pressed, and then the curved line shown on the right was painted . The stamp brush cursor shows the end of the drag; the clone source cross hairs shows the corresponding point in the original image.

image from book
Figure 2-2: The Clone Stamp tool being dragged to paint with the image. To make things easier to see, the cloned content was applied to the white area.

It's worth noting that the Clone Stamp clones the image as it existed before you began using the tool for as long as you hold down the mouse button. Even when you drag over an area that contains a clone, the tool references the original appearance of the image. This means there may be a visual disconnect between what the Clone Stamp tool seems to be sourcing and what it paints , as illustrated in Figure 2-3. This is actually a good thing, however, because it avoids repetition of detail, a dead giveaway of poor retouching.

image from book
Figure 2-3: During the course of a single drag, the Clone Stamp tool continues to clone from the image as it appeared before you began painting. This prevents you from creating more than one clone during a single drag.
Tip  

Photoshop lets you clone not only within the image you're working on but from a separate image window as well. This technique makes it possible to merge two different images, as demonstrated in Figure 2-4. To achieve this effect, Alt+click(Option+click) in one image, bring a second image to the foreground, and then drag with the Clone Stamp tool to copy from the first image. You can also clone between layers . Just Alt+click (Option+click) one layer and then switch to a different layer and drag.

image from book
Figure 2-4: The Clone Stamp tool merges our bird with his pal, the cheetah.

Cloning options

When the Clone Stamp is active, the Options bar gives you access to the standard Brush, Mode, and Opacity settings that you get when using the brush tool. These enable you to mix the cloned image with the original to get different effects, as explained in Chapter 1. You also get the Flow value and Airbrush icon, which enable you to build up brushstrokes where they overlap and at points where you mouse down without moving the cursor.

You'll also find the Use All Layers check box, which lets you clone from multiple layers at a time, very useful for cloning from a composite image onto a new layer. For more information on this option, read the section about the Smudge tool in Chapter 1.

The only option associated with the Clone Stamp tool that's a complete departure from what you've seen so far is the Aligned check box, which locks down the relative source of a clone from one Alt+click or Option+click to the next . To understand how this option works, think of the locations where you Alt+click (Option+click on the Mac) and begin dragging with the Clone Stamp tool as opposite ends of an imaginary straight line, as illustrated in Figure 2-5. When Aligned is turned on, the length and angle of this imaginary line remains fixed until the next time you Alt+click. As you drag, Photoshop moves the line, cloning pixels from one end of the line and laying them down at the other. The upshot is that regardless of how many times you start and stop dragging with the Clone Stamp tool, all brushstrokes match up as seamlessly as pieces in a puzzle.

image from book
Figure 2-5: The Clone Stamp tool's blend mode set to Hard Light with the Aligned check box on. This clones the image continuously, no matter how many times you paint a new brushstroke.

If you want to clone from a single portion of an image repeatedly, deselect the Aligned check box. Figure 2-6 shows how, with Aligned turned off, Photoshop clones from the same point every time you paint a new line with the Clone Stamp tool. As a result, each of the brushstrokes features some fragment of the source point but none line up with each other. In these examples, it may appear as if having Aligned selected is the superior setting. But as you'll see in later sections, turning the option on and off both serve specific purposes.

image from book
Figure 2-6: If you turn off the Aligned check box, Photoshop clones each new line from the point at which you Alt+click or Option+click.

The Healing Brush

To get a feel for the tool, open a picture that needs some work. Figure 2-7 shows an example of the kind of photo that can benefit from this tool. This happy-go-lucky fruit bat (also known as a flying fox) has suffered some damage to its membranous wings. A real-world injury we can electronically heal right here in Photoshop.

image from book
Figure 2-7: The Healing Brush heals all wounds (including those shown here), whether from the original image or from improper handling during scanning.

After you've got your wounded image open, select the Healing Brush by pressing the J key. Then press Alt (or Option) and click in the image to identify the texture that you want to use in healing one of the photo's wounds. Next, paint over a spot, scratch, pimple, wrinkle, or scar to miraculously heal that portion of the image. The tool works incredibly fast ” it took just seconds to heal the imperfections seen in Figure 2-8.

image from book
Figure 2-8: A close-up of the wounds (left), and their miraculous recovery (right).

How healing works

In dabbling with the Healing Brush, you'll quickly discover two things. When it works, it works incredibly well, better than any other retouching technique available inside Photoshop. But when it doesn't work, it really doesn't work, introducing colors and shades that appear clearly at odds with their surroundings. When used carelessly, the tool produces desirable results slightly more often than it doesn't, so you may be content to paint and hope for the best. However, if you take a little time to learn what it is the Healing Brush is doing, you'll figure out how best to use it and when to use the Clone Stamp tool (or the new Spot Healing brush) instead.

Naturally, mastering a tool and learning not only how, but when, to use it is the better approach, so here's how it works: The Healing Brush blends the pixels from the source point with the original pixels of your brushstroke. In that respect, it works a little bit like the Clone Stamp combined with a brush mode. But rather than blending two pixels at a time ” cloned and underlying original, as a brush mode does ” the Healing Brush blends cloned pixels with those just outside the brushstroke. The idea is that the pixels that you're painting over are messed up, but the pixels just beyond the brushstroke are in good shape and should be emulated.

Figure 2-9 illustrates the concept. Here you see what happens when the Healing Brush is used to clone content from an image onto a textured background. As the Healing Brush clones the content, it blends the colors from the photograph and textured background in roughly equal amounts. Photoshop dodges the brushstroke to match the light edges of the background and burns the brushstroke to match the dark edges. And it does all this according to the colors, highlights, and shadows that it encounters in tracing the very outer perimeter of the brushstroke, indicated by the dashed line on the right side of Figure 2-9.

image from book
Figure 2-9: The Healing Brush clones the content on the left (see the source point) onto a textured background (right). The line (left) through the ape shows the path of the source point throughout the brushstroke. The line surrounding the brushstroke (right) shows the outer edge of the brushstroke.

Despite all this coloring and shading, the Healing Brush transfers the texture in its entirety from source point to brushstroke. In Figure 2-10, after Alt+clicking(Option+clicking) in the top image, the content was dragged four times in the bottom image. In each case, the Healing Brush entirely replaced the pattern texture with the content from the image on the left. At the same time, each brushstroke gets progressively darker to match the shade of the gradient in the background.

image from book
Figure 2-10: When set to the Normal brush mode, the Healing Brush clones the texture from the source image (above) in its entirety. The only thing that changes is the color and shade (bottom five strokes).

What can you deduce from this?

  • First, the Healing Brush replaces the texture as you paint just as surely as if you were using the Clone Stamp tool. If you want to mix textures, you need to employ a brush mode, as explained in the next section.

  • Second, the manner in which the color and shading are mixed is directly linked to the size and hardness of your brush. Photoshop looks at the outside edge of the brushstroke. As illustrated back in Chapter 1, the outer edge of the brush grows as the Hardness value shrinks. So soft brushes cause the Healing Brush to factor in more surrounding colors and shading.

The upshot is that if a brushstroke seems the wrong color, or it's too dark or light, undo it. Then modify the brush size or hardness, usually by making it smaller or harder, and try again.

Healing options

In contrast to its astonishing editing powers, there's little you can do to customize the behavior of the Healing Brush. It doesn't allow you to use custom brushes or to apply any of the settings inside the Brushes palette. To modify a brush, you have to click the Brush icon in the Options bar. This gives you access to a few brush tip settings along with a single dynamic that lets you link brush size to pen pressure or stylus wheel.

It's also important to note that you also have no control over Opacity or Flow, and the brush modes are limited to just eight. In each case, the mode merges cloned and original pixels, and then performs the additional healing blending. By way of example, Figure 2-11 shows four of the eight modes when painted over a horizontal gradient. Thanks to the dodging and burning applied by the Healing Brush, dark modes such as Multiply and light modes such as Screen can be substantially compromised. In fact, most of the brush modes have little effect.

image from book
Figure 2-11: Examples of the Healing Brush combined with four brush modes across a light-to-dark gradient.
Tip  

The exception to the rule is Replace, which clones pixels without blending, as if you were painting with the Clone Stamp tool set to Normal. So, why do this, particularly when the Healing Brush set to Replace offers far fewer options than the highly customizable Clone Stamp tool? The answer is to test effects. Thanks to its blending routine, the Healing Brush takes several seconds to apply. But when set to Replace, it takes no time at all. You can test a brushstroke, make sure that it's cloning the right area, undo it, switch back to Normal, and paint the real thing. Replace is so useful that it's worth remembering its shortcut, Shift+Alt+Z (Shift+Option+Z on the Mac). Press Shift+Alt+N (Shift+Option+N) to return to Normal.

Other options include:

  • Source buttons : Determine whether the Healing Brush clones pixels (Sampled) or paints with a predefined texture (Pattern). The Pattern setting for the Healing Brush is covered in the section about applying repeating patterns, found later in this chapter.

  • Aligned check box: Aligns multiple brushstrokes to a fixed source point, as described previously in the section on cloning options. The Aligned check boxes for the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp tools are linked, so selecting one selects for the other as well.

Finally, you have the Healing Brush's Use All Layers setting in the Options bar. Much like the similarly named option available to the Clone Stamp and Smudge tools, turning on Use All Layers factors in information from every visible layer during the healing process. As mentioned previously, this feature can be a great asset because it allows you to create a new layer and perform all of your pixel manipulation on it while still retaining your original pixels on the layers below.

image from book
Healing on the spot

New in Photoshop CS2, the Spot Healing Brush works very much like the Healing Brush in terms of its results, but the mechanism is a bit different when it comes to your role in the process. Instead of having to sample content and set a source point, all you have to do is click the tool on top of the offending spot ” a small scratch, stain , blemish, or any other small area of unwanted content. If you attempt to sample by pressing Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac), you're prompted that if you want to manually set a source, you should use the Healing Brush. Of course with all this simplicity, the biggest drawback is that the tool can guess wrong ” grabbing information from the wrong pixels and giving you a bigger spot than you started out with. As stated earlier, this tool is covered in the Standard Edition of the Photoshop CS2 Bible, because it's assumed that Professional Edition readers can click the tool and click a spot without much assistance.

image from book
 

The Patch tool

If you prefer to heal a selected area all at once, choose the Patch tool from the Healing Brush flyout menu in the Toolbox. You can also press Shift+J.

You can use the Patch tool in one of two ways:

  • Define destination, drag onto source: Assuming the Source option is selected in the Options bar, as by default, use the Patch tool to draw an outline around the portion of the image you want to heal. This creates a selection outline. In Figure 2-12, for example, the selection is shown in the top image. Next, drag inside the selection outline to move it to a new location. The middle image in Figure 2-12 shows the drag in progress. The spot at which you release the mouse button determines the source for the clone. When the selection is dropped (see the bottom image), Photoshop heals the content.

    image from book
    Figure 2-12: With the Patch tool, draw a selection outline around the part of the image to heal (top), drag the selection over the clone source (middle), and release to watch the original selection heal away (bottom).

  • Define source, drag onto destination: If dragging the thing you want to heal onto the thing you want to clone seems backwards to you, flip it. Select the Destination radio button in the Options bar. Then use the Patch tool to select the portion of the image that you want to clone (you can also use an existing selection). Drag the selection over the area you want to heal and release your mouse button.

Insofar as selecting is concerned , the Patch tool behaves just like the standard Lasso tool. You can add to a selection by Shift+dragging or delete by Alt+dragging (Option+dragging on the Mac). You can even soften a Patch using Select Feather or modify it in the Quick Mask Mode, thus giving the Patch tool more room along the edge of the selection to sample colors and shades. And there's nothing that says you have to draw a selection with the Patch tool. Feel free to define the selection any way you want and then use the Patch tool to move it over the source or destination area.

The Patch tool lacks Opacity and brush mode controls, and you can't use it between layers or between different images. All work has to be done on a single layer, which ultimately limits its potential. On the plus side, you can patch a selection with a predefined pattern by clicking the Use Pattern button in the Options bar.

Note  

Photoshop gives you a preview of unaltered source pixels in your selected area while you're still dragging it around. This preview gives you a better idea of how the size and shape of the area from which you're pulling texture will fit when it combines with your original destination. You also have a Transparent check box in the Options bar, which when selected, pulls the texture from wherever you drag, but none of the color information comes with it.



Photoshop CS2 Bible
Photoshop CS2 Bible
ISBN: 0764589725
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 95

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