Complete Guide to Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop

the clone stamp tool is the dumb daddy of Photoshop well what does it do it just takes an area clones it as the name suggests and pastes it into an area that you want it's just a copy and paste in a brush well here's the thing since it is dumb you can make it do whatever you want you can program it the way you want you see intelligent tools like the Spot Healing Brush - The Healing Brush tool the pasture or the content of air fill a very intelligent are smarter faster quicker and get your work done much easier but here's the thing since they're intelligent with all their ego and dignity you just cannot tell them when they're wrong you just kind of tell them when they make mistakes because they just won't accept their mistakes and that's when you bring the dumb dad into the picture quite literally and even Adobe knows that the clone stamp tool is so important that it has given the clone stamp tool unlike any other healing brush or spot lean brush etc its own dedicated panel how interesting is that hey folks in this video we are going to cover everything you need to know about the clone stamp tool in Photoshop right from the basics - some really cool advanced stuff that you wouldn't know if you didn't know so without any further ado let's jump straight in [Music] so here we answer chef and if you are starting out with Photoshop that's one clones them to looks like and this is the clone stamp to this one okay right click on it it shows you the tool with the name if you cannot see the clone stamp tool make sure you have selected the clone stamp to change from pattern stamp tool to clone stamp row okay now here's what it does it just copies an area paste it somewhere else you want in this image as you can see by the way this is a very beautiful picture sent by Adriana she's an awesome photographer go ahead and check out her work links in the description ok so let's zoom in what a beautiful bride she is and I really love the leading lines look the staircase leads your attention to the bride right zoom in and there's one problem with this photo the legs here it's just distracting and we want to remove it here's how to remove it so you want to copy this area and paste it here so that it covers up this area and that's what it does clone stamp tool covers up areas and before you apply any cloning make sure you make a copy of the background layer how to do that control a command J I'll teach you one more technique which is more efficient and better but for now let's just learn this so that the concepts are clear with you so to make this area cloned and pasted here all you need to do press and hold alt or option the cursor changes to a target icon just like the one you see in guns right you just click in there one and as you can see there's a brush and inside the brush we have a preview so if you paint here it will paint in what the preview shows so just click in here and there we go it's done now here's the thing if your clone stamp tool is acting strange or any other tool is acting strange here's what you need to do there's a drop down arrow beside every tool just click on that arrow then click on this gear icon and then click reset - to be completely sure click on that again and reset tool presets click OK and there you go it's all reset now if it was acting strange it won't anymore now watch let me go one step back again so if you zoom in if you make the brush bigger and if you press and hold alt or option if you click here and if you paint here as you can see there's a plus sign somewhere okay look at the plus sign here at the top if you paint the plus sign also moves and the plus sign is where it's copping from where it is cloning from and the brush is where it is cloning to okay so paint in there we go and the first tip of cloning is this always make sure it lines up for example you're taking a sample from here with the preview make sure it lines up with that and then you paint okay that's the trick number one now here's another thing which is very essential so suppose let me go back so suppose you were painting something like this you took a sample from here make sure you take a sample from a nearby area if you take a sample from here say right here it just won't match will just become a bright patch here it looks alright but if you zoom out look just a bright patch here so make sure you clone from a nearby area now when you clone from a nearby area like this and when you paint in here okay it's going fine it's going fine but if you go a little further the hand appears again here's what you need to do you need to clone again okay because when you reached here it reached the hand which was here so you need to clone back again from this area or this area make sure you take full advantage of the preview in this take a sample from here you see the preview line that up and just paint and if you don't see the preview here's where the fun is if you don't see the preview let me just open the clone stamp tool on panel go to windows and choose clone source if you don't see the preview that's probably because the show overlay is unchecked if this is unchecked you don't see the preview if this is checked and you sample an area you see the preview so let's quickly go ahead and finish this so we'll click here and we'll just paint here just like that click here and just just continue it that's all there is and as you can see I'm not going to do it completely for you so this is the before this is the attribute of completely remove that you need to be really careful when you do that especially make sure you don't see any patches okay so let me just quickly show you one more little thing it's clone stamp tool is great for things which is sticking out of hard edges for example here simply all you have to do just clone this area it will show you the preview just vintage here have a look before there was a little strange crazy thing there after gun so here's what you need to remember whenever your cloning number one line it up and number two make sure your cloning from a nearby area which matches when you clone because if you don't if you clone from a father area far by whatever area you get the idea you see patches color shifts strange and usual lines so make sure you clone from a nearby area okay now let's talk about clone stamp tool working with blend mode now clone stamp tool is made to work awesomely with some blend modes that we are going to talk about that you will be using time and again now I have talked about this before in a previous tutorial but not exclusively so let's talk about blend modes with the clone stamp tool and it really works intelligently if you control it okay so here i have an image a very simple image on the left hand side we have the black color middle 50% gray and on the right hand side we have the white color it's simply a picture of three colors and that's what it is now first make a copy of the background layer not required here I'm just showing you an example so when you have the clone stamp tool selected here you have a couple of blend modes that you can choose from for the clone stamp tool okay so the first one you're going to learn is darken get now when you have the darkened blend mode selected and if I take a sample from say the white area it gets press and hold alt or option click on it take a sample and if you paint over here it just paints nothing but if you take a sample from here with the dark and blend mode selected press and hold alt or option painter it just paints how interesting is that now let's learn a lighten we'll explain it later later but let's learn lighten before if you have light and select a name and if you take a sample from here black side pain teacher doesn't happen anything if you take a sample from white painter it does pain here's what's happening getting guess what's happening here's what's happened when you have the blend mode darken you're telling the clone stamp tool hey just a dark in my man and if you cannot darken don't do anything so when I'm sampling from a white area there is no way it can darken a gray area and that's why it's doing nothing in more technical terms if you have the darken blend mode selected and the area that you're cloning from which in this case is white is brighter than the area that you're cloning to it just won't paint on the other hand if the area that you're cloning from is darker than the area that you're cloning to or the area that you're painting is brighter then it will think when you have the darkened blend mode selected and just the opposite happens with lighten enlighten if the area that you're cloning from is darker than the area that you're cloning - it won't paint for example the area you're cloning from if it's black it's darker than gray it just won't paint but if the area that you're cloning from is white and it's lighter than gray and as well as black if you paint it it's okay now let me give you a couple of examples to show how this is really going to be helpful in real-life scenarios as you can see in this picture the man has pretty nice beard and if you want to shape it what blend mode to use lighten right because you don't want to affect the skin and the beard is darker than the skin so let's go ahead and let's zoom it and make copy of the background layer control the command tray now take the cloning to don't stem too and make sure the mode is lighten if you take a sample from here and paint it over here since the skin is light it won't disturb the skin but it will only paint over the hair isn't that interesting so zoom in make sure you take a sample from nearby area so that it doesn't look fake and just start painting just like that you might have to take samples again and again so take samples paint adhere the examples paint it here now here's the thing about this whenever you're painting with a lighten blend mode if you have to choose between for sampling if you have to choose between a lighter area and a darker area always choose the darker area if you have to choose between them here's why that way you won't accidentally over light in an area here's what I mean okay so let's go back so this is okay we were clearing the beard is looking fine and here we have a light patch of skin and here we have a dark patch of skin okay so if I had sampled from here and painted here what would have happened is that it would have painted fine but there would be no use of that blend mode have a look it just gives there a light patch giving it a dead giveaway that this is retouched so make sure when you are in lighten and if you have to choose between a darker area and a brighter area to sample from to clone from choose the darker area just the opposite light choose the darker area if you have to choose from if you don't please don't do that okay so you wanna just let's go back and we would sample from here you would paint it just like that just like that and you know how to do that right and you might want to clean it just a little bit before after and I have a separate tutorial about shaving very beautifully in fur to make sure I go ahead and check out the video right here the license and note is also very effective in removing tattoos as you can see in this example if i zoom in since the tattoo is darker than the skin listen to this carefully since the tattoo is darker than the skin if you take a sample of the skin and paint it it will paint just over the tattoo why because skin is already light skin is already bright light and blend mode it just won't paint over a bright area so take a sample from here and paint each if again I told you if you have to choose between a dark area and a brighter area choose the darker area and since it goes in a line make sure you choose something like this and then start printing just like that and as you can see just paint over the tattoo now you might want to make a copy of the background layer just and do that but you get the point right there we go why do we always make a copy of the background layer here's why because let's make a copy of the background layer and if you do something wrong and if you move a hundred steps you can always mask it back for example you get this and then you want to get this back this is a very bad cloning of course if you have a look see white patches that's what I told you if you have to choose between a duck and try to choose the darker area now if you want to get it back you can always click in here click on here create a mask and paint in black you can get it back if you do in case you do a mistake and if you want to redo that so that's the way to stay safe now if you're removing tattoos here and you're completely zoomed in and you don't want to zoom out and again zoom into this area here's a tip for you let me give you a tip not related but let me give you a tip if you press the H key if you press and hold the H key and if you click on the mouse click and hold on the mouse it becomes a square just like a bird's eye view and if you move it here if you drag it here and here we release the mouse it just zooms back into that area so H key is still held hold the left mouse button ok locate the area that you want to zoom in please okay let me just go to this area and simply it's very we just ride so sample from here it's gone very nicely and don't forget to sample multiple times okay there we go very easy and this is such a beautiful result before after oops before after I I think I just moved the picture didn't I yes I did move the picture by accident there we go it just should fit right there okay have a look so before after also creating a copy of the background layer lets you see the before and after now when is the dark and blend mode going to be useful you see whenever you have something suddenly going bright and if you just want to paint in that particular area that's when you need the darken blend mode as you can see in this photo very nice young man handsome just the skin goes a little bright right here here's what you have to do make a copy of the background layer and this is a smart object so right click on it and make sure it's rasterized bad okay so that might not be necessary for you but I just imported it using a plug-in so it's a smart object and now let's go ahead and select its own stamp to change the blend mode from lighten to darken now if you sample this area and you paint over here sure it does give you a nice dark tan skin over there but it's very harsh my friend it's very hard to have a look this is before this be after it's very harsh here's what to do when you're doing such thing playing with skins or stuff decrease the flow in this case I would go 20 flow that way you would have to paint several times to get it completely opaque okay so you got more leave 8 into painting this just like that softly we paid it a little extra here so I would go a little back pain to the word again just like that stop here there we go don't forget to take samples multiple times to have a look so this is the before this is the after and you can paint it clean this area and you get the idea and even in this let me give you that old trick if you are in darken blend web and if you have to choose between a darker area and a brighter area guess what you'll choose a brighter area that way you won't accidentally over darken and area okay so if you zoom in if you want to do the same here and if you have the choice of taking a sample from here darker area and a brighter area you would take the sample from here the brighter area that way you won't accidentally over darken an area if you have the flow say at around 100 and if you take sample from here a dark patch will show up we just want to avoid that see the darkened blend mode can be useful in a lot of circumstances say there's some white spots and face may be of applied talcum powder and you want to remove that from skin so on and so forth by the way do you remember the efficient way that I was talking to you about before I told you that I would tell it later here's what it is so this photo was taken by Shaunie Annette she's a very creative photographer go ahead and check out her work right here in the description also I have linked her up now if you want to remove the wrinkles she doesn't have any wrinkles but here's the thing if you want to remove save this line right here and here's what to do you don't need to make a copy of the background layer create a new layer and here's what the next learning is you see there is something called sample which is set to current layer now if you take the clone stamp - and a few samples save this area a nearby area change the blend mode to normal take a sample from nearby or in painter it won't do anything why because the layer is empty and it is sampling from the current layer if you change this to current and below or all layers it will sample now current and below allows you to sample from the current layer which is this layer which is empty in this case and the layer which is below it all layers allows you to sample from all the layers no matter where there is a bit stacking order there they are there in Photoshop so if you sample from here and paint here that all layer selected it will just erase that of course you need to have a better area and of course you need to reduce the slope like 20 inch to something like that and you get rid of it just like that for example now in this layer in this new layer if I just turn that off that goes away now you have just the cloning area on its own layer if I show you just this layer press and hold alt or option click on this this becomes solo this layer just has this area and if I turn everything back on if I just paint in something random just like this and if I just turn on this layer this layer just has this pretty much area and that's why it's much more you know flexible because if you once you have remove that once you have removed the wrinkles just like this maybe you did some pretty heavy job if you want to take the opacity down you think it's too much you can always take it down just like that and make it more natural before after now of course the clone stamp tool is not made to remove wrinkles the healing brush tool or the patch tool is much better in this case but when nothing works the dump that is your way to go but here's the catch here's the catch listen to this very carefully let's come back to example number two we talked about this now let's create a new layer take the clone stamp tool ok sample from this area with the blend mode watch with the blend mode say I want a dark in this area or say light in this area now I've choosen the blend mode lighten if I take a sample from a black area and if I paint here it should not paint but now if I paint here it does paint if I change the blend mode to darken and take a sample from a white area paint it here it does paint it shouldn't paint right whatever the blend mode is painting everywhere here's what's happening the blend modes don't work on a new layer for the blend modes to work you need to make a copy ctrl command j or a merged copy ctrl alt shift e command option shift e to or make a new layer then create a merge copy ctrl alt shift + e command option shift + e and then paint ok if you have many layers here all you have to do you have to create a new layer and then press ctrl alt shift + E or just press ctrl alt shift + E using a mask command option shift + E that creates a merged copy and in that it starts working back again take a sample from the black it does paint but take a sample from the white it does not paint because darken is selected if that was a new layer just let's go ahead and let's delete that that was a new layer it just won't work see it's painting irrespective of the blend mode so for the blend mode to work create a merged copy now I did talk about this in my previous tutorial about removing HDR halos those ugly halos but since we are talking about the clone stamp - let's talk about it again in general now sometimes you might have to use the selection tool with the clone stamp - whenever you have something sticking out of an edge or something like that that time you need to add a selection for example in this case as you can see there is a halo here right there's a ugly halo this white edge and we want to remove that so if we had sampled the sky make a copy of the background layer let's rasterize it it's a smart object and by the way clone stand - it doesn't work on smart objects if I try it just won't work the smart objects must be rasterized rasterize the smart object okay let's flash drive - suppose you want to fill this area let's say the sky so if you take a sample from here and if you fill this area this is filling it pretty well but it's also affecting the car we don't want to do that so here's what to do create a selection with the quick selection tool select this area there we go now it makes a selection this means that it creates a sense so whenever you're sampling something I'm painting something with the clone stamp tool so you sample the Sirian painted over here it just won't go outside the selection but shears the thing you can sample from outside the selection it just won't go outside the selection interesting isn't it so you would sample from here paint over here pretty nice clean images discover everything have a look at the before and after so this there before white edge this is the after now you can do the job on too lazy to do it now let me give you one more secret so let go ahead and create a new document doesn't really matter anything and go to follow me or anything I just wanted to show you something so if I create a new document just any dimension just for demonstration the clone stamp tool does work across documents here's what's interesting so if I have this document here if I have this document here right here so if I clone something from here so just like that with the clone stamp loop shown something from here I can paint in right here in another document to be honest I really don't know how that's going to be useful but you'll find a way where there's a will there the way okay so let's talk about the kiln source panel in FB showed in the beginning of the story oh if you didn't see the pre you remember that panel okay so here's how to make it appear again go to windows and select clone source now this is a very interesting panel have a look so if i zoom in okay let's make a copy of the background layer first now select the clones to blend mode is normal slow is hundred okay now if I want to duplicate this scholar and just place it right here in the same way I just want to mirror it here's what to do if you press and hold alt or option click on in here and paint it we'll just paint it the same direction I didn't want that I just want to flip it in this clone source dialog box this button flips horizontally and this button flips vertically so if I click here and if I take a sample see the preview it just flipped it but the angle is just not right how to change the angle through the angle parameter so if you click here and drag to the left it will move anti-clockwise if you click and drag to the right it will move clockwise so as you can see the angle is not right so here's how to do click and drag to the left anti-clockwise there we go now let's take a sample and let's have a look it's not still right click and drag to the left nope it's not right now now it's okay have a look make the brush little bigger so that you can see it take it more now it's pretty much better and if I take a sample that's reversed of course I need to clean it and you basically have the idea of what it okay so that's what it does now this slips Horizonte this clips vertically now here's another thing let's talk about some Alliance stuff so suppose you take a sample from here okay just for fun stuff and if you faint in here just like that it paints in right now if you move the brush right here and paint in again it samples from here it doesn't sample from here back again but if you wanted to sample from here back here's what you need to do make sure you have so the clone stamp tool again make sure you have checked off the aligned button now if you check out the aligned if you take a sample from here you paint in here it's that if you paint in here it's again that it's not moving if you're painting here is that if you click and paint it does move but if you paint in separate area it just samples from the same place if you have the aligned checked then if you take a sample from here and if you paint here it does paint that first time it does paint that but the second time in your paint it just moves it with the brush now here's an interesting thing to notice have a look at the offset if I sample from here the offset is right now zero zero pixels if I move the brush the offset value changes now if I click once the offset value is fixed if I paint again the offset value is still fixed so it's moving along the brush the clone form area is moving along with the brush and see the value is minus 880 160 this is the relative distance of the brush and the area that it's cloning from if I check off the aligned and take a sample from here and paint it over here see the offset value the source it changes from offset to sewers have a look it changes the writing from offset to source now it's a fixed coordinate it's not in minus or anything it's a fixed coordinate if you paint in here no matter what you do it's a fixed coordinate right a couple of more interesting things so this is this allows you to show the overlays so if you check this off the overlay will not show up opacity of the overlays now this isn't resting what blend mode it shows if it's normal if you take a sample from here this shows you the preview with normal blend mode if you change the sample change the blend mode to darken if it shows you the preview with darken blend mode if you change the sample to lighten it will show you the preview with light and blend mode so it's completely independent of what you choose here so if you are choosing darken and if you're choosing dark in here it will exactly show you what it will paint exactly just best okay now let me give you a practical example of how the clone source panel can be useful so in this example if you zoom in if you had to remove the chains so the first thing that you would do is to clean the edges right make a copy of the background layer and change it to rasterize that for the clone stamp tool if you take a sample from here okay and with the blend mode normal if you line it up very well you lined it up just like this and you paint it here it just won't match because it will just go straight you need to rotate that at that time you need to open the clone source right open the clone source and then what you need to do change the blend mode to normal so that you your vision is really clear then rotate that so I took a sample from here it's too bent so I would rotate it clockwise take it to the right just a little bit see if it's okay now it's okay now we'll just paint just a little bit just like that and take a sample from here maybe or here and then it's already rotated have a look you don't have to rotate that again it's done now it's easy to clear this very easy to clear this with a blend mode like darken you can very easily clear this how we can use other tools so that's pretty much about the club stencil all you need to remember is this clone stamp tool is a dump tool you can mold it the way you want when to use it when none of the other intelligent tool works when all of the other intelligent to think they are too intelligent to make a mistake come back to the dump Jerry you're healthy and if I did make sure to give it life and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe if the belt button come at you my friend don't miss anything I'll see you guys molecular on section and make sure that you keep we are aware you

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 146,875

Keywords: clone stamp tool photoshop, how to use clone stamp tool, clone stamp blend modes, clone stamp tool explained, adobe photoshop, photoshop tutorial, clone source, remove distractions, remove facial hair, remove tattoo, Lighten blend mode, darken blend mode, remove wrinkles

Id: RCREQu9jaRo

Length: 30min 13sec (1813 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 11 2017