Attack Of The Clones

The Clone Tool is one of the most beloved pieces of kit in the PhotoShop box. It's effectively a rubber stamp that copies pixels from one area of a digital image onto another area.

Its most basic use is, indeed, touching dust and scratches off scanned photos and marks on digital shots that result from dust getting onto the sensors of digital SLR cameras during lens changes.

In the past, we've used it extensively to remove such inconveniences as powerlines and road signs from landscapes, and even touched out unfortunate portrait day pimples. Of course, we're not passing our work off as news photos.

Cloning also comes in handy when a photo wasn't composed the way you wish it had been so you might extend an area of a shot, such as doubling the amount of sky so that type can be laid over that area.

The trick is not to let repetitive clone stamping become obvious. You can avoid this by careful selection of 'donor' areas or, if detail is not important - such as in clouds of smoke - by brushing the cloned area afterwards with the Blur Tool.

If only Hajj had known Blur is just two tools below Clone, he might still have a job.