The Clone Stamp tool is a lot like the Healing Brush tool, except that the clone stamp does not automatically try to heal or blend the sampled image data into its new surroundings.

 

You will find the Clone Stamp tool grouped with the Pattern Stamp tool in the Photoshop toolbox.

 

 

When you select the clone stamp, you can press the Alt key and click on an area of your image to sample it. A set of cross hairs will appear over the spot that you sample. Basically, the pixels from the spot you sample will be painted (cloned) on to the image as you drag your mouse pointer over it. The cross hairs will move over the image in unison with your strokes showing you what part of the image you are cloning from. You can also simply click your mouse on the image to deposit the image data onto a single spot the size of your brush. 

 

Like the healing brush, the clone stamp is great for removing small blemishes or unwanted objects from your image. As mentioned previously, the clone tool makes no attempt to blend the cloned data neatly into the image like the healing brush. For best results, try to sample image data from an area with colour and lightness values that are similar to the region you are painting over.

 

When you select the clone stamp tool, its configuration options will be available in the options bar as shown.

 

 

You can change the brush qualities (such as size and hardness) with the Brush options and you can specify how the colour is blended with the options available in the Mode drop list. You can use the Opacity slider (available by clicking the small arrow next to the Opacity field) to adjust the transparency of the data you are cloning. If the setting is close to 100, the data will be opaque. If the setting is close to 0, the data will be almost transparent.

 

You will also notice an alignment checkbox at the left of the options bar. If this checkbox is clear, the cross hairs indicating the sampled image data will return to the original spot that you sampled (Alt + Clicked) on every time you release the mouse button. If there is a check in the box, the cross hairs will relocate relative to the movements of your mouse pointer.

 

If you put a check in the Use all layers checkbox, you will be able to create a layer, and apply the clone stamp to it, while leaving the underlying image unchanged. You can then make the top layer with the clone stamp effect to visible or invisible as you see fit.

 

 

The image on the left has been retouched with the clone stamp. You can see that the boulders next to the little girl’s shoulder have been removed from the image.

 

As with the healing brush, you can use the selection tools to create a border to confine your paint strokes.