The CLONE TOOL
U s i n g O p a c i t y
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very time a tool is chosen in Photoshop’s tool palette, the options in the tool bar change. When you choose the clone tool, one of the options is opacity. Opacity is one of the most effective techniques to solve many problems in photographs.
established the anchor point, or the place from which the clone tool will copy pixels. This point was at the top of the water in the lake. I then cloned up into the sky area just above the horizon line. At a reduced opacity (50% in this case), the clone tool blended the water into the lowest part of the sky.
Take for example the image below of two stallions sparring in a marsh in southern France. The distant shoreline and the scrub vegetation don’t really ruin the picture, but I don’t particularly like it. The dark swath is distracting and diverts attention from the horses. The problem in removing it, though, is that the sky has to gradually blend with the water as if the background were foggy. Any kind of sharp demarcation line wouldn’t look good.
Still on the lowered opacity, I then re-established the anchor point in the sky, this time just above the water level. Cloning the white sky down into the water blended the two areas further.
The first thing I did was to select the clone tool and, at 100% opacity, I cloned the sky over the shoreline and vegetation to completely obliterate it. Then, I changed the opacity to 50%. I held the option key down (alt key on a PC) and
My technique, then, is to use 50% opacity and clone from the water into the sky followed by the same procedure but from the sky down into the water. This blends the two parts of the image together seemlessly. Another use of the clone tool at a lowered opacity is shown on the next page. These are models of marine dinosaurs, and I photographed them from above in my office using diffused window
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