7 Clone Stamp
Used for painting
with copied image data
Found at #5 in the Toolbar diagram at left
The clone stamp, and pattern stamp tools are grouped together in the
toolbar. Click on the one which is showing to see the pop-up menu, and
choose the one you want.
.
With the clone stamp tool (formerly known as the rubber stamp tool), you can copy, or clone copies of a portion of an image and paint them onto any other part of the image. The size of the area copied depends on the brush size you select from the brushes pop-up menu on the tool’s options bar. How the copy merges with the new area is determined by the choices you make on the options bar [see below].
Hold down the Alt key while clicking to pick up, or copy the image data you want to transfer. Then release the Alt key, move the pointer to where you want to apply that data and click, or click and drag. Cross-hairs will appear to show you where you are copying from. When you start painting, the cross-hairs will be at the spot where you Alt clicked. Depending on whether you chose Aligned in the options bar, the cross-hairs will parallel your strokes, or return to that original spot after each release of the mouse button.
Be aware that if you have added adjustment layers or have a stack of layers with a variety of blend modes above the layer that you want to clone to, your clones will be all wrong. You need to turn off adjustment layers or blends other than Normal at lowered opacity (turn off visibility by clicking the eyeball icon at the left end of those layers) while your are doing your cloning. Turn them back on once you are done.
Note - if your Alt key does not appear to be working in Photoshop, you may have another program running in the background that has taken over that key. GuruNet (Atomica) and FlySwat are two such applications. Uninstall them, or reassign the hot key in those programs to regain use of the Alt key in Photoshop.
You can use the clone, and pattern stamp tools to copy data between different images, as well as within the same image.
If you choose Edit > Fade immediately after using this tool, you can change the opacity and blend mode of the strokes you have just applied.
A shortcut to change brush sizes while using any of the paint tools, including the clone stamp tool, is to press the left bracket, [, to decrease brush size, or the right bracket, ], to increase brush size. Shift-right-clicking on your document while using this tool will open the blend mode menu next to your cursor.
The keyboard shortcut for the clone, and pattern stamp tools is the letter S.
The illustration below, is the rubber stamp tool’s options
bar (spit in two parts because it’s so long). To choose a brush
size and type, click on the brush thumbnail. A pop-up palette of available
brushes will appear. Press Enter or click on your document’s blue
title bar to close the palette after you’ve chosen a new brush. If
you want to access the full brushes palette with its many options, click
the brushes palette button at the far right end of the options bar.
You can also right-click on your document to open the brushes pop-up palette next to the cursor. For more information on brushes, please see the Brushes in 7 tutorial. If you are still using Photoshop 6, find information on the your brushes palette on the old brushes page.
To find any tool presets that have been made for this tool, click on the tool’s thumbnail at the left end of the options bar. To reset the tool to its default settings, right-click on the tool’s thumbnail and choose Reset Tool from the menu that appears.
The box titled Mode, and showing Normal is a drop down menu of all the blend modes. Note that the blend mode on the options bar (as opposed to the layer blend mode in the Layers palette) affects how strokes added by the clone stamp interact (blend) with color already on that layer.
The Opacity slider determines the how transparent the copied image portions will be when reapplied. A setting of 100 % is completely opaque. 0 % is completely transparent. Access the slider by clicking on the arrow at the right side of the box and dragging the slider that appears.
If you have Aligned checked, your clones will be applied as if you were working with a copy of the image that has been displaced the distance of your first stroke after Alt-clicking. All subsequent strokes (prior to another Alt-click) will fill in the copied image relative to that first stroke. When you do not have Aligned checked, all (separate) strokes after an Alt-click will apply from the single spot that you Alt-clicked. Each time you end one stroke and make a new one, the new one will use the same starting spot (your Alt-click location). Thus you can repeatedly apply the same image data (the Alt-click location) to different spots.
Note that double-clicking when you are Alt-clicking will turn Aligned on if you have it off. I do this all the time by mistake (I use a stylus). This can be a real nuisance since it makes a mess if you think you have it off when it’s on. I want it to be off (not aligned) and stay off.
Use All Layers is a valuable option that you should take advantage of whenever possible. When it is turned on, you can add an empty layer above your image and do your cloning on that layer. This allows you to clone without changing your base image; you can use the eraser to correct mistakes, or delete the entire layer if you don’t like what you have done. If you do not have this option checked, you must clone on the image itself, and clone/sample data will be copied only from that layer.
If you have doodled with a tool’s options and want to get back to the default settings, right-click that tool’s icon at the far left end of its options bar (in Photoshop 6, left-click). Choose either Reset Tool to reset only the current tool, or Reset All Tools to restore default settings to every tool.
Please note that all descriptions, and illustrations featured refer to files which are in Photoshop’s .psd format, and which are in RGB color mode. Other file formats, and color modes may generate different options. Some Photoshop features are not available for images not in .psd format, or RGB color mode. To find what color mode your image is in, choose Image > Mode.
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