Clone Stamp & Healing Tools

1. Introduction

Image retouching is an important part of photo editing. Clone Stamp and Healing tools help fix imperfections such as dust, scratches, wrinkles, and unwanted objects.

• Used for photo restoration
• Essential in professional editing

2. Clone Stamp Tool

The clone stamp tool copies pixels from a selected source area and paints them onto another area.

• Exact pixel duplication
• Manual control over retouching

3. How Clone Stamp Works

• Select source area (Alt/Option + click)
• Paint over target area
• Source pixels are duplicated

4. Healing Tools

Healing tools intelligently blend the sampled area with surrounding pixels for a natural look.

• Texture + color blending
• More automatic than clone stamp

5. Types of Healing Tools

• Spot Healing Brush
• Healing Brush
• Patch Tool
• Content-Aware Fill

6. Spot Healing Brush

Automatically removes small blemishes by analyzing surrounding pixels.

• Best for minor imperfections
• No source selection required

7. Healing Brush

Uses a user-defined source area but blends it with the target area for seamless correction.

• More control than spot healing
• Natural-looking results

8. Clone Stamp vs Healing Tools

Clone Stamp              Healing Tools
----------------------   ----------------------------
Exact pixel copy         Smart pixel blending
Manual control           Automatic correction
May look artificial      Natural appearance

9. Advantages

• Removes unwanted objects
• Repairs damaged photos
• Improves overall image quality

10. Applications

• Photo retouching
• Image restoration
• Fashion and portrait editing
• Advertising graphics

Practice Questions

1. What is the clone stamp tool?
2. How do healing tools work?
3. Differentiate clone stamp and healing brush.
4. What is content-aware fill?
5. Where are retouching tools used?

Practice Task