BASIC: How to Use the Clone Brush in Paint Shop Pro X
It’s bound to happen. You snap a great photo, but there’s something in the background that you wish wasn’t there. Mastering the Clone Brush in Paint Shop Pro will help you “re-paint” your background to perfection.
1. Let’s begin by opening an image and creating a duplicate of it (Shift+D). Close the original photo. For this tutorial, I’ll be using a photo I took of my son at Sea World in San Diego. As you can see, the pretty trees in the background were marred by the father and son walking in front of them. Our object is to get rid of this duo and recreate the background.
2. Switch to the Clone Brush (C).
3. The settings will depend on the size of the area you want to clone away. Typically, it’s better to use a smaller brush size for more control, however choose settings that you feel comfortable working with. For this example, I’ve used the following settings:
4. Notice the size of the brush as compared to the area that I will be cloning.
5. A larger brush size would not be appropriate for this photo because the target area that you choose would be more difficult to control, creating an obvious duplicated pattern. (Note: A larger brush size might work on a photo containing a large area to be cloned…the ocean or sky, for example.)
6. Here’s the fun part. To use the clone brush, right-click on the area that you want to clone (or copy). This becomes your source. After right-clicking the source area, you should see an “X” that marks the area you will be cloning.
7. Begin cloning by clicking and dragging your mouse over the area you want to cover. Notice that the “X” moves in the same direction as your mouse.
8. Be sure to re-sample your source area (by right-clicking) to prevent an obvious pattern to appear. In the photo above, notice that I’ve successfully cloned away the balloon string that the boy was carrying. Now let’s work on removing the people. Continue re-sampling your source and dragging over the area you want to cover.
9. Now let’s start cloning the hedge so that we get rid of their torsos. Right-click on the hedge and begin painting. TIP: Be sure to change the size of your brush as you need to; you can also zoom in for more pixel control.
10. Again, continue re-sampling and painting the area until the hedge appears to be whole.
11. Now let’s get rid of their legs by cloning the sidewalk.
12. Repeat the re-sampling and painting until the legs are gone. You can also re-sample the flowers in the bottom part of the photo to cover up stray “leg” pixels.
13. Here’s the final photo:
14. And here are the before and after photos for comparison:
As you can see, the Clone Brush is a very powerful tool. Have fun experimenting!
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