I often find myself having to clone big areas from a small area, sometimes a very small area. There must be something in the Photoshop battery to deal with this (I use cs2), but I need to know what it is before I can check up the relevant tutorials. I've never used the pattern tool - maybe something like this is the way forward?

Help would be much appreciated

A pattern might be useful for things such as skin, but not so much when objects, such as blades of grass etc. are needed because of the repeat patterns that develop. Cloning can be very tedious and take lots of patience.

There are some techniques to cloning that I find useful and one of my favorites is to clone in the Vanishing Point filter. This gives you the advantage of being able to see your clone brush "loaded" with the source of the clone. There is no need to lay out a perspective grid (unless you need perspective), just define the grid using the four corners of the image (ie. just a flat rectangle).

Hi Swampy,

Good grief. I didn't expect that! It sounds amazing.

I will have a go later today and get back to you (or however long it takes me to get it right.)

Thank you so much.

Caroline

I think you're on the right track with the pattern maker. What I've done is generate and save two or three different patterns (the pattern maker randomizes the pattern each time you regenerate plus you can tweak the pattern controls). Then just switch between the different patterns while cloning or healing and it gives a fairly random appearance. Don't forget the patch tool with a pattern--that's the easiest way of them all to quickly fill in an area with a pattern.

Swampy's suggestion on the vanishing point tool is good too assuming the source pattern isn't too small. However, if your source sample is really small, you really need to use the pattern maker as described above. (I wish Adobe would do the brush preview thing for the standard clone and heal.)

Bart

Swampy,

I've been practising cloning - using the vanishing point tool - & I see why you like it! Isn't it nice to be able to see where you are picking up from....

My one wish with this filter is that when I make a bad mistake, I would like to go back a step, or erase, and there doesn't seem any option for this (probably because it's a filter.) I wondered how you get round it? With complex cloning I guess you save what you have done already in the filter, leave it, then fix your mistake in the main Photoshop screen, then go back into the filter to continue? Or is there an easier option? :dizzy:

Bart,

Many thanks for those suggestions. I am still knee deep in the Vanishing Point Filter (quite a lot to learn), but the next thing on my list will be to follow up your suggestions. In the next week or so I will come back to let you know how I get on. Using a variety of pattern variations sounds a good way of tackling the problem of a very small sourcing area.

Canna...

I think you are allowed one undo in the filter normally, but there is a way you can get more undos while in the Vanishing Point filter.

You have to edit your keyboard shortcuts. Edit->Keyboard Sortcuts. Flip open the "Edit" folder. Normally "Undo" is COMMAND+Z (Mac). Change that to something like OPTION+COMMAND+Z. Now change the "Step Backwards" short cut to COMMAND+Z.

Now you will have as many "un-dos as you have memory for. I've got 2.5gigs of ram so I never have a problem doing 10 or 20 undos. Never had need for any more than that, but that should help.

I've posted a screen capture of the place where you make the changes.

It probably won't help in this example, but this seems like a good point to mention that Photoshop CS3 has the new Clone Palette, which allow clone source scaling and rotation. Use Overlay mode to preview what you'll be cloning (a different method from the VP visible cloning brush, but effective in its own way).