[Award Winner] Photoshop: Using the Clone Stamp tool for better Brush work

[Ascension]

It functions basically as a copy machine shaped like whatever your brush is shaped like. It will copy all layers if you choose or just one and also works between images (which is how I use it - copy from one and paste/click in another). It also preserves any transparency on a layer. So that's how that goes, not sure if Gimp has something like it.

[arsheesh]

Yes, GIMP does have this feature. Here's the GIMP documentation describing how the clone tool works, and here's a little tut from ehow on the same subject.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[carlsson]

Thanks for the explanation Midgard.

Why can't there just be such a thing as "gradient brushes" and this would be a non-issue....?

Is there any way to combine brush with the clone tool? Two things come to mind:
- I would like to use the Brush Shape Dynamics.
- I would like to have a continous flow (ie, not press the mouse button for every tree/mountain/whatever).

I tried, but couldn't get it to work.

[Midgardsormr]

A gradient brush is sort of an oxymoron in Photoshop terms. You wouldn't be able to change its color, so then it's not a brush; it's a stamp. I do wish that Photoshop had some kind of image pipe like the Gimp, or even something like the Symbol Sprayer from Illustrator.

You have access to the brush palette with the Clone Tool selected, but it won't do what you want. The size and shape of the clone source will remain the same, and painting a stroke will move the clone source, also. But you could jump into Illustrator and use the aforementioned Symbol Sprayer to get something close. It might take some jiggery-pokery to create a vector symbol that will mesh with a raster map, though.