Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: The mighty clone tool  (Read 4948 times)

PSA DC-9-30

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 207
The mighty clone tool
« on: April 02, 2008, 12:15:04 am »

My simple question is this: Where in the workflow should you use the clone tool? After color corrections, tonal adjustments? Before or after noise reduction? Before sharpening I assume. Thanks.
Logged

Kirk Gittings

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1561
    • http://www.KirkGittings.com
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2008, 02:48:55 am »

Quote
My simple question is this: Where in the workflow should you use the clone tool? After color corrections, tonal adjustments? Before or after noise reduction? Before sharpening I assume. Thanks.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=186297\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


For correcting dust & other flaws I do it immediately after raw conversion for digital and immediately after capture sharpening for scanned film.
Logged
Thanks,
Kirk Gittings

Lisa Nikodym

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1705
    • http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lisa_pictures/lisa_pictures.html
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2008, 06:06:13 pm »

I don't believe it much matters exactly when you do it.  (Just before final sharpening, as you said.)

Lisa
Logged
[url=http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lis

situgrrl

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 342
    • http://www.charlyburnett.com
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2008, 06:49:20 pm »

The workflow I used (I'm back to film so it's slightly different) (garnered from this site and a few others) follows like this.  It depends on what tools you are using.

RAW conversion.  (In LR/Camera RAW, you can sharpen here.  I would unless I was doing noise redux which is sucky in these programs when it's serious)
(Tonal corrections) these were probably done in RAW.  Sometimes they accentuate noise hence here)
Noise reduction (you don't want to sharpen noise)  If you were using masks to do local tonal adjustments, consider using the masks with your NR, see above)
Input sharpen (PK Sharpener)
Local Contrast Enhancement (see tutorial on LL)
Retouch (spotting, drain pipe removal, insertation of UFO)(you don't want to sharpen your mistakes)
Save As Master
Output sharpen and Save as /print dimension
« Last Edit: April 02, 2008, 06:50:20 pm by situgrrl »
Logged

dalethorn

  • Guest
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2008, 08:20:30 pm »

This sounds complicated - but I keep it simple. I try to find the most "copyable" pixels next to the defects, which are usually best for cloning at the earliest stage in processing.
Logged

walter.sk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1433
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2008, 10:03:09 am »

Quote
This sounds complicated - but I keep it simple. I try to find the most "copyable" pixels next to the defects, which are usually best for cloning at the earliest stage in processing.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=187525\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I like to do tonal and global color corrections before cloning.  The reason is that often I have found that cloning first results in visible artifacts when changes in tone or color are done later.
Logged

davidh4976

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 37
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2008, 07:28:29 pm »

Try using the Retouch Tool in Adobe Camera Raw.  That's the tool that looks like a paintbrush on the ACR menu bar.

It works very well and ACR will remember what you've done the next time you open the image.  The "memory" of the retouch is really convenient for taking care of dust spots.  Clean them up once and they're cleaned up every time you open the image from ACR.

There is an option for Heal or for Clone.

It's non-destructive so you can un-do it if you want (Clear All).  The control you have is quite nice, too.  You can grab the source and destination circle and re-size or reposition them.  Try it!
Logged

BenjaminJ

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10
The mighty clone tool
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2008, 10:47:52 am »

In some cases the Patch tool is much more useful/effective than the Spot Healing tool or Healing Brush. Sometimes you can remove long scratches from a scanned image in one action (only making a proper selection takes some time).

Agreeing with David:
The ACR/LR Retouch tool is also handy, but you need to watch for colour differences -- watch the difference between Heal and Clone. You can only use this by placing spots, not as a brush. Using Heal smoothes colour differences out more, but can't be used to Clone out dark bigger or light spots, because it looks at surrounding pixels for it's brightness.

Retouch is nice because it's a one time job. When you want to develop a RAW file differently, you won't have to do the retouching over again in PS! In that sense, it's good to do this step in the pre-processing part of your workflow. I've never seen sharpening affecting my retouching negatively.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2008, 10:51:36 am by Benjamin Jung »
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up