# Strange Result from Use of Clone Tool



## jackjohn777 (Aug 4, 2012)

I'm used to working with Photoshop and that has got an exceptional clone stamp tool. I must say I've found the clone/heal tool in LR pretty limited and clunky to use in comparison. However, I'd like to confirm if the latest issue I have encountered is actually more because of my limited knowledge of LR and using this tool in LR rather than a limitation of the tool. I suspect it might be the former in this case.

I have just used the adjustment brush with auto mask on to alter the sky in one of my photos, when the area of sky was broken up with various architectural objects including towers, telephone/electricity lines, and some very thin and delicate poles/building structures etc in the distant background, not to mention trees with sky visible through the branches/leaves.

The adjustment went pretty well, but some of the more delicate thin items in the very distant background got altered along with the sky and now stand out badly. Their colour was obviously too difficult for the system to differentiate from the sky during the adjustment even with auto mask on, and they were almost impossible to work around by hand even zoomed in with a small brush. In the end I decided to just clone stamp the sky, and remove these pole/cable like items out of the photo altogether, since they were adding nothing, and yet were weirdly developed and now sticking out of place. 

However, when I tried to clone stamp them out, they remained visible in the photo, but seemed like another adjustment brush had altered their look the opposite way e.g. they were quite dark blue looking before I started, and then with the clone stamp they turned quite white looking, and of course frustratingly remained visible. I'd expected the area I wanted to be cloned to be perfectly replicated over the top of area I wanted removed, so why would this result happen?? No matter what I tried I couldnt simply remove them and put the new sky there instead. Would the fact I'd initially used the adjustment brush over the area I was now trying to clone, as well as over the area I was now trying to remove, affect things?

Finally, as a side pt, when the clone stamp worked as expected on another image I tested that had no adjustment brush use, why does it not clone the whole area of the circled area equally? It appears to have a feather effect i.e. the centre of the circle clones perfectly but the opacity seems to change the closer you get to the circle perimeter. The only settings seem to be opacity which was 100 and size, so is there another setting I'm missing?

I hope that first bit makes sense!

Thanks in advance


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## Hal P Anderson (Aug 4, 2012)

The spot works cleaner with Clone than Heal selected, but it's always going to have feathered edges. For work like you're doing, you need to use Photoshop. Lightroom's tool is not a clone stamp, it's a Spot Remover, mainly useful for removing sensor dust spots. You'll drive yourself pretty crazy trying to use it for much more than that.

Hal


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## Brad Snyder (Aug 4, 2012)

It's really intended for dust spots and skin spots. I have taken out microphones, wires, poles, hanging light fixtures, and the like, but a lot of work, and only satisfactory to an unsophisticated audience.


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## jackjohn777 (Aug 5, 2012)

Yep, fair enough guys. I thought the same to be fair, but a few people had previously suggested LR might be a bit better than I had thought in this area versus PS, but obviously not.

However, any idea why the result im getting is happening? It's not cloning at all in terms of the cloned area I am taking and what gets placed over the spot I'm trying to replace, as the cloned area is literally almost a solid blue circle of sky and yet the final stamped area still has all the exact same architectural items in it, just seemingly altered settings visually (rather than on the panel) i.e. it looks like I've used an adjustment brush on it when I actually just used the clone tool.

Cheers


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## Kiwigeoff (Aug 5, 2012)

Maybe you can post a screen shot of what you are describing??


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## jackjohn777 (Aug 5, 2012)

Kiwigeoff said:


> Maybe you can post a screen shot of what you are describing??



Sorry it's a fair point, I will do in future, I just originally thought it would be an obvious explanation to someone who knew the package really well, and now I haven't got anything to show unless I reworked it again, as I've since simply used photoshop instead and sorted it all out quickly. Essentially the clone tool in LR wasn't doing what I expected i.e. exactly cloning the area I selected, and instead seemed to do it without full opacity (even in the centre of the circle, but definitely towards the perimeter), which was set at 100.


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## Kiwigeoff (Aug 6, 2012)

Fair enough just remember in Lightroom there is no Clone Tool, it is a Spot Removal Tool.


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## jackjohn777 (Aug 6, 2012)

Kiwigeoff said:


> Fair enough just remember in Lightroom there is no Clone Tool, it is a Spot Removal Tool.



Yes will do Geoff, and I do agree with you in practical terms, but the confusion comes because within the 'Spot Removal Tool' you do get offered two options, 'Clone' and 'Heal'. I don't believe it does 'Clone' well from my tests so far, so now I'm only using the tool for removing dust blemishes, and I don't choose 'Clone' for that I chose 'Heal' as it seems more effective, consistent and intelligent. 

Unfortunately I've just not been able to get my head round exactly what the 'Clone' option does within the 'Spot Removal Tool' in pixel terms. I expected an exact clone of the first circle/spot to be taken and then placed over the spot chosen using the second circle. Adobe suggests the same by saying that when you pick 'Clone', the area of the circle you've chosen is used to 'Clone' the spot.

However, when I've tested the 'Clone' option it doesn't 'clone' the circle entirely, and replace the entire spot selected with the 'clone'. It clones to a degree, but varies from the centre of the chosen circle towards its perimeter, almost like a feather effect, and in some cases doesn't clone perfectly even in the centre of circle, which was the issue I experienced at the start of this thread, and I thought it may be because I'd used the adjustment brush on the area I cloned (although I dont see why this should matter). 

Whereas from my brief experience, the 'Heal' option seems much better at removing spots likes dust blemishes etc, because it seems to use the area chosen to be replicated, and intelligently applies it's texture, light, shade to the circle/spot to be replaced, and in the case of dust blemishes that means they get removed perfectly, better than a 'clone' in my opinion since it leaves the actual area that should have been displayed rather than inserting a faked copy.

Anyway, as I said I'm now assuming no cloning (using my understanding of the word from PS) in LR as you suggested. However rather than simply ignore that function in LR, it would have been good to get my head round exactly what 'clone' is supposed to do in pixel terms throughout the whole circle/spot, or how it works, as I could find it useful for something I'm yet to realise, and where possible I'd prefer to remain in LR and not switch to PS unless absolutely necessary.


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## DonTX (Aug 6, 2012)

I've been trying to figure this out too.  This weekend I spent a bit of time with the spot remover trying to figure the difference between 'Clone' and 'Heal'  Clone doesn't clone in the sense that I'd think.  I was trying to see if I could get rid of a sign in a photo by cloning in what was around it, but couldn't get it close.  It leaves parts of the sign around the edges that seemed like it was being feathered out.

Not really a huge deal, as the spot remover tool does work well.  I just wondered what the 'clone' ability of LR4 is.

Don in TX


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## Hal P Anderson (Aug 6, 2012)

Clone in LR works kind of like clone in PS with a very soft brush selected.

Hal


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## jackjohn777 (Aug 7, 2012)

Exactly Don. 

Hal - Yes it certainly seems to be very soft and does give the impression you're suggesting and this would answer the question I raised near the start about why I was getting the results I did, but even if that's the case why does opacity set to full at 100 still mean that even at the centre of the 'brush' or spot/circle the clone doesn't work fully as you'd see in PS i.e. why have a 100 setting if some remnants of the image you are trying to remove is still visible even right in the centre? Also the feathering effect the 'clone' option automatically uses on LR isn't really softly graduated from my experiments. 

I think LR would really benefit from a similar clone tool to PS, as it can mean you regularly switch to PS and out of RAW just for this purpose, and since I've had this problem my searching online has found lots of forums/websites where cloning like PS was raised as the key user wish for LR4, but obviously Adobe decided against it.


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