Adobe Photoshop/Photoshop Elements
Second Steps

Continuing in our tour of retouching images, we'll now see how to remove a blemish. The tool we use for this is very powerful and used for many types of actions. It is called the Clone Stamp Tool (or Rubber Stamp -- the icon looks like a rubber stamp.)

We'll work on repairing the bowl of fruit pictured at right. This image used to come with Photoshop and Adobe intended that users would use it to practice doing retouching. I've actually seen it used on TV without repair in computer ads. I was very surprised. Look at this still life. Do you notice any glaring problems? There is something wrong with the pear. That spot doesn't help this still life image.

With Photoshop (or Elements), you can repair the photo without redoing the shoot. You'll "clone" one area of the pear over the blemish. This is a good example, because you can't just paint the spot green. A healthy pear is not just green, its a sort of freckled green. And the lighting is brightly reflecting off some of the pear facing the off-screen light source, and part of the pear is in shadow. Even with these challenges, this won't be very hard to do.

There are other troubles with the image, like the scratches in the lower left corner. We'll also address that problem.

You might think the image is too light or too dark. That's more a function of your screen. The "levels" are actually about right.

On to the pear. First, get the Zoom tool and click by the blemish. I did it twice to go to 300% view in the example below. (Remember, to zoom back out if you need to, click Alt-Zoom.)

Now, in the toolbar, click on the Clone Stamp Tool. It works, in a sense, like a brush. Your first task is to set the brush size. To do this, note that like most tools, a collection of settings is displayed above the image, but below the main menu items. It shows the tool, and some options, one of which is a pop-up of brush size and type (shown below). Choose a 9 point brush. There are two of these. Choose the one with a "feathered" edge. (This means it will blend its effect.)
Your tool is now ready. Drag it over to about the spot indicated by the circle below. It should look like a 9 point circle. The idea is that you are going to "clone" from one area onto another. You are going to first locate and mark the "from" area. We're trying to select an area that is like the area we need to paint to. We want an area that's not too dark and not too light. (If you mess this up once or twice, its OK. You can Undo and try again as often as you'd like.) So --- to mark the "from" area, hold down the Alt key and click the left mouse button. Let go of the button and key. Then move the mouse to position the circle right over the blemish in the pear. This will be the "To" point. Think of this as you are going to paint by pushing down and holding the mouse (not pressing any key with it). As you move the brush around then, it will move the From point to always keep the same offset distance and direction between the From and To points and copy color and texture from the From and to the To. Try it. Don't over paint. A short dab should do it. Your pear should look like the one on the right below when done (and zoomed back out.)

 

Removing Scratches (and dust)
Next, how do we deal with the scratches in the lower left?
1. First, zoom in to 300%.
2. Then use the Rectangular Selection tool (sometimes called the Marquee Selection Tool) to select the region of the scratches.
3. There's a filter designed precisely for this. Pull down under Noise -> Dust and Scratches. You'll see a dialog like that on the right. Use a radius of, say, 8 and a threshold of, say 16. Click OK.
4. Pull down under Select to Deselect.
5. Zoom back out with a couple Alt-Zoom tool clicks.
(The radius and threshold determine the effect of the filter. Threshold determines the amount of color change across the radius distance to define a scratch versus a texture change. If threshold is too low, the texture will smooth too much. If it is too high, the scratches will remain. I often use a radius that is about half of the threshold.

Notice the key idea here is to maintain the texture of the background while removing the scratches and dust. This is very useful with scanned images and digital photographs.

 

So finally, we get rid of the black outside border by selecting with the Crop Tool which we start with by dragging a rectangle which can then be adjusted by dragging handles. Once ready click the check arrow up in the tool menu. We then decided another petal would be nice along the lower part of the image. Do you see it. It takes a little work to get it there. The idea is to first use the clone stamp to duplicate the petal to the right. Then select the new petal with the marquee too. Then use Filter -> Distort -> Pinch to shrink it. Then use Transform to rotate it. Some regions of background color will appear as content is rotated out of them. So clone stamp some content in. This way the new petal looks more natural. I decided to leave the shadow on the wrong side to show this was done by rotation. Some more cloning would fix this.

So for an "assignment," do all the above (actually you don't need the new petal if you don't want to spend the extra time).

There are many other occasions where the clone stamp is helpful. An example is the picture on the left below of a minaret in Cairo, Egypt. The image of the delicate artistry of the stonework is disturbed by the modern light pole. Its expensive to go back to Cairo to re-shoot the image. The clone stamp can solve the problem. (For the image on the right, we've also fixed the underexposure (using Levels) and done a little crop. The bottom still has a remnant of the pole to show it was there. We haven't yet eliminated the second, smaller pole. Try it.

 


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Page maintained by Dr. Robert Fry. Last updated 10 July 2007.