Tutorial - repair photos with Photoshop Elements clone stamp tool
Repair photos? Why? Maybe you have been digging around in that old shoe box full of photos and found a few damaged ones? Don’t discard them, repair photos with Photoshop’s clone tool, and give them a new lease of life!
The clone stamp tool is one of those tools that sits in Photoshop’s tool palette, and rarely sees the light of day.
It is often used for “cloning out” unwanted parts of a photo.
The classic chimney sticking out of your best friend’s head springs to mind.
It’s an ideal candidate for the clone stamp tool. The tool can be used to remove that chimney, and restore your friendship!
But Photoshop’s clone stamp tool can also be used to repair photos. Torn photos? Stained, perhaps? The clone stamp tool can repair photos so seamlessly that you’d never know they had been damaged.
The photo below shows what can be done to repair photos with the clone stamp tool. Roll your mouse over the photo to see the before and after clone stamp.
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – tutorial step 1:
First, you will need to scan your damaged photo.
Lay it as flat as you can on your scanner and scan it. Save the scanned image onto your hard drive.
Load up Photoshop and then open the image you have just scanned.
NB: This tutorial uses Photoshop Elements, but it works the same in the full version of Photoshop.
In Photoshop Elements, make sure you are in “Full Edit” mode – see number 1, circled in the screenshot to the right.
Then click on the clone stamp tool, arrowed in the screenshot to the right:
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – tutorial step 2:
The clone stamp tool cannot be used directly. Before you can use it you have to tell Photoshop which area of your photo you want to take a sample from.
Think of this in terms of a quilt that has a small hole in it. You need to repair the hole, but you need to find a piece of matching material that will fit over the hole first.
In Photoshop, you first have to find a part of the photo that matches the damaged part that you want to repair. Usually this will be near to the damaged area.
Once you have identified a part of the image that you think can be used to repair your photo, hold down [Alt], then click on the sample you want to use. This is called your “target” area. Photoshop will use this area of your photo to patch the damaged part.
Once you have set the target area, begin to brush over the damaged area. The screenshot above shows you what to do.
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – top tip 1:
Keep re-selecting the target area, and then dab the brush over the damaged area of the photo. Doing this will help the repair to blend better.
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – top tip 2:
Make sure you use a soft brush (Photoshop’s brushes are soft by default, so you should be ok here).
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – top tip 3:
Use the “[” and “]” keys on your keyboard to make your brush larger or smaller – “[” will decreases your brush size, “]” will increase it.
Repair photos with the clone stamp tool – tutorial step 3:
Keep working around the damaged area of your photo. Take is slowly, and choose your target areas wisely.
If you make a mistake while cloning, and a patched piece looks obviously out of place, undo your mistake. You can do this by going back up through your work in the “History” palette, or, the keyboard shortcut to undo is [Ctrl]+[Z].
Sidebar . . . One of the best things about digital photography is sharing the photos you take. However, because we end up taking so many of them, it’s easy to lose track of them all.
I recommend you give Google’s Picasa a try. It will not only organise your photos, but will perform minor edits too.
It’s all some photographers need, and best of all, it’s absolutely free!
Picasa comes as part of the Google Pack. If you don’t want the rest of the pack just de-select them when you get to the download screen.
Click here, and you too can
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