To Clone or not to Clone?
I spend a bit of time looking at the photo restorations of others. Most of them are great. However, I have noticed the tendency of many photo restorers to really rely on cloning.
What is cloning? Literally, it is picking up one piece of the picture and putting it down on another missing or damaged part. You really need to pay attention to the size and hardness of the brush to make sure you have smooth transitions in the picture. I like the round pressure brush and I like to make percentage adjustments constantly on how much to apply to the new area. Many times I use the automatic brush tools to smooth out the edges.
However, I have seen some really strange uses of the clone tool just to fill space. Don't forget the brush tool or cropping if the picture starts to look a little weird. By weird, I mean that there is just not a large enough amount of good section to clone over to the damaged area and you start to get a "pattern" of the cloned part. Using eyedropper and settings for the type of fill can be very helpful in this area.
Many old pictures have decorative backdrops and curtains. Some have plants and chairs. Cloning can rebuild all of these things if you use soft layers and patience. The faster you try to fix something, the more obvious the "repair" can look. It is common for good photo restorers to go back a few steps and check to see if they are making a convincing restoration. I personally have started over completely if I get myself into a mess because I have lost sight of what I am repairing and have gotten to "into" the magic of the tools.
Sometimes the third attempt is the charm. Next week we will take a quick look at cropping.
Thanks for reading my blog....
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