# New LR user - could somebody point me in right direction for this clone issue?



## GoGas (Nov 25, 2013)

Up to recently mainly used LR for library but have started to try and learn to use the digital develop functionality to improve my photos. Do not have Photoshop - but do have GIMP but totally confused by complexity. I have what I thought was a simple issue but am struggling. 

A panorama (link here http://flic.kr/p/hQpAUk ) I have constructed has area of sky at right hand end which is flared out due to sun and I wanted to "paint it over" with graded blue sky from nearby. I would have thought that this was using either clone or heal (not sure of the difference) but this tool is only circular and I have tried (ending up with huge number of varying size  circles) but effect is not particularly good ( my attempt http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/11049454444/ ) . The colour match is not good and it is difficult as the area is not circular. Ideally I wanted to click a sample area and then just repeatedly paste that area to cover up the white flare

Am I going about this the correct way or am I completely off track? Should I use another tool in LR or is this not possible in LR?

Thanks


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## Selwin (Nov 25, 2013)

Hi GoGas and welcome to the forum! You can *drag* the tool to create a bigger area. Make sure clone is selected if you wish to clone the blue sky. This may not really work as well as you hope, the photoshop CS clone stamp is more suitable, but you already stated you don't have that. You may try heal as well to create a more realistic effect. Please also play around with the settings in the right panel to get the most out of it. I'm on iPad now so can't create a screen shot for you. Maybe later when I get home.

good luck!


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## Selwin (Nov 25, 2013)

Okay I managed to load your panorama now. I must be honest and say it's not going to be easy fixing this in Lightroom. I think your best bet is heal the entire region in the sky by dragging the spot healing tool. However, you will likely get in trouble at the horizon.

This is not the most recommended level to start learning LR's develop module. You may lose faith in LR and that would be a shame because LR is extremely powerful.

If this is your only difficult image I can try to have a shot at it tonight. If you wish to do this more often you may need an additional pixel editor, such as photoshop CS or Elements.

upon close examination, something went wrong at the seams between the original photos. Which app did you use for this panorama? You may want to fix that first.


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## Jim Wilde (Nov 25, 2013)

Selwin, GoGas is using LR4 if his profile is up-to-date....so won't have the benefit of LR5's advanced spot removal tool.


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## Selwin (Nov 25, 2013)

Ouch, misread that, good catch Jim. Sorry GoGas, my bad. My offer to work on your image still stands though, for compensation .


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## Selwin (Nov 25, 2013)

Hi Paul (GoGas),

Here is what I could achieve in 10 minutes of Photoshop.




Is this what you had in mind?


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## GoGas (Nov 26, 2013)

Selwin and Jim

Many thanks for your help and time to respond. I am using LR4.

This has been learning experience and has taught me there are limitations to LR and take your point perhaps not best place to start but did seem a real (and simple to a new user) area of flair to correct.
Perhaps I need to look at GIMP as external editor, can't afford photoshop for the amount I do. I had dismissed Elements as it seemed overlap with LR and not sure how they would work together. Does Elements have the sort of tools- panoramas, HDR,  the sort of fill tool I would have needed for the sky in my photo  etc. ? If so it may be worth considering.
I used Hugin Panorama tool for constructing the panorama from 5 shots - it was my first attempt and will look more closely as though the joins were reasonable but perhaps did not look closely enough, although not sure how I could improve it. Used tripod and about 8+ join points between each pair. I am going to go back and look at the TIFF. Not sure the joins were that poor and wonder if this somehow relates to publishing from within LR4 as jpg to FlickR. Not at iMac currently will look later.

Thanks

Paul


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## Selwin (Nov 26, 2013)

Hi Paul,

For what seems to be a 180 degrees pano, 5 images isn't many. You want to create a big overlap, at least 30% per image. The pano software will have more pattern info to produce a seamless result.

I haven't used Elements much, I'll have a look at a trial version if I have some time tomorrow or the weekend. You could do the same and you'll have 30 days to evaluate.

In my attempt, I didn't use any fill tool because the area is too large. I created a layer containing only the sky (sky layer) and a layer containing only the land (land layer). I flipped the left half of the sky horizontally and copied it over the problem area. Then I put that layer behind the land layer and I was done.


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## GoGas (Nov 27, 2013)

Selwin

This thread has been useful in putting things in wider perspective.

I had not considered the 30 day trial version (can't understand why I did not think of it) and as it has panorama software (don't know about HDR) may be good complement to LR. I will try it.
The discussion encouraged me to look more laterally at the brush aspect and from some video tutorials noticed the significant addition of non circular brush in LR5 for clone and heal and this has prompted me to look at upgrading to LR5. Also the tutorials shown me I need structured approach to learning the develop options of LR.
Will take on board your comments about the 30% overlap m - I used the guides on the OMD EM5 and perhaps these are not wide enough.

thanks

Paul


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## AndreasM (Nov 27, 2013)

Concerning HDR:

Photoshop Elements has no HDR function as far as I know.

There is PaintShop Pro from Corel which has HDR, but no panorama stitching tool. 30-day trial version is available.
The HDR function of PaintShop Pro gives pretty nice results, but the integration into a workflow with Lightroom is a bit clunky.

So what I use now is the "Merge to 32-bit HDR" Lightroom-Plugin from HDRsoft. From within Lightroom it creates a 32-bit tiff picture with the information of multiple bracketed shots. This 32-bit image can then be adjusted/tone-mapped in Lightroom. It's only $29 and a free trial version is available as well (trial version creates a watermark in the 32-bit picture).


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## Den (Dec 1, 2013)

Elements has limitations in using 16bit files.
There's a LR plugin called "Enfuse" It's practically free. For a small donation of as little as 3 Euros you get the full program. You can read about it here:
http://hdrguide.com/lightroom-enfuse-plugin-review


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