Photoshop Clone Tool

This Photoshop Clone Tool will explain how to use the clone tool to remove anything from your image.

Not always, but often enough I find I want to remove objects/things in an image - in this case I wanted to remove the shadow underneath the guy on the skateboard - and while I was playing with the clone tool I also decided to change the colour of his trousers! The clone tool is an excellent tool and really easy to use once you know how.

The clone tool can be used in several ways, to clone - make a double of an object, or to remove something by cloning something less obvious… it’s easy to get to grips with which is why I love it so much.

Feel free to request something similar to this tutorial on the Photoshop Clone Tool.

Before

After

Photoshop Clone Tool - The Steps

• First of all, I suggest you download the image I am using - right click on it and save image

• Assuming you’ve got the image open and are ready to go, duplicate your layer. CTRL (win) / Command + J to duplicate.

• Now locate your clone tool - press S on your keyboard, make sure you’re using the clone tool and not the pattern stamp tool. Mine looks like this. Once you’ve got that, just under the File, Edit, Image tool bar you’ll see a brush, change it so that it’s a nice soft round one - I had one which was roughly 45 in size.

• Now, go to your image - in the image above I removed the shadow - it’s pretty easy to do, so that’s our aim. I’ll explain how: what the clone tool does is copy the part of the image you select and patch it over something you don’t want.

• Try this: hold down the ALT button and left click with your mouse on something you want to clone - go to something you want to remove (like the shadow) , let go of ALT and move your mouse over the shadow. Hopefully you’ll start to see the clone tool working by removing the shadow and cloning part of the image you clicked on. If it begins to look funny, select on the image again by pressing ALT + left click of the mouse - release and move your brush over the image. You’ll begin to see when you need to ALT + click on darker parts of the image and then lighter parts. If you struggle with this do it a few times - undo your edits and redo them. It’s easy when you know what you’re doing, a few tries will be all you need.

• That’s the hard bit - it’s easy but putting it into words, reading it & then trying it out is tricky.

• Now selectively change the colour of his jeans. I know you can do this with selective colouring, but I decided to do it differently as layer adjustments/selective colouring don’t always give you the free reign.

• So go -> Select -> Color Range - this box will appear, although the settings won’t be the same as mine - so change everything, but don’t worry that the little image doesn’t look the same. Once you’ve changed the settings so they match mine, move the box so you can see the guys jeans, then left click on the darker part of his jeans. I clicked on his left thigh. If you do it right, the little image in the box should look a lot like mine. Then click OK

• You should now see something similar to this - you can see that the guys jeans have been selected but so has part of the sky. You need to now deselect the sky and select any bits you haven’t got of the guys trousers. To do that select the Elliptical Maquee Tool , then hold down ALT and select parts of the selection you don’t want - if you want to be very picky then you could zoom in to make it easier. Just press Z and click a few times on your image, you’ll be zoomed in. Then go back to removing the selections. As I’m zoomed in, I also decided to be picky and add some more selection to his jeans - instead of holding down ALT, hold down SHIFT and then add more selections to his jeans.

• My selection ended up like this - now duplicate your selection. To do that press CTRL (win) / Command (mac) + J - if you go to your layers palette you’ll see that you have your original layer, your duplicated layer and then your newly duplicated one which will look much more different.

• Now go -> Layer -> New Layer Adjustment -> Hue/Saturation - change the saturation to -100 and lightness to +37 - press OK

• Now press CTRL (win) / Command + E and hopefully the hue /saturation layer will merge into the duplicated jeans layer.

• Phew… and there you have it. No more shadow and lighter jeans! If you have any questions regarding this Photoshop Clone Tool Tutorial then just drop me a line in the below comment box. I’ll happily reply.