How to Clean Up a Landscape by Cloning

That would be landscape photography! If you like the way your scene looks, but don't like aspects of it, you can fix it! If your graphic software has the ability to clone, you can get rid of all that extraneous 'stuff'.

• The images in this article were created using Gimp 2.8

Steps

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   Open up your image using your chosen software. While Photoshop is a great option, it can be out of most people's price range, unless they are using Photoshop CC. But there are several other programs that you can use.
   • Zoner Photo Studio Pro
   • Paint.net
   • Gimp
   • Photoshop
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   Find your clone tool icon. Most of the time, it will look like some type of stamp.
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   Choose a brush. You want there to be some area of diffusion. This will help your cloning to blend in.
4. 4
   Current brush size
   On your image, locate your brush. You want to see if the brush is an appropriate size. It needs to be smaller than larger, depending on your source image.
   • The shortcuts to 'growing' or 'shrinking' a brush is usually the [] (square brackets). Try that first.
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   Hold down the CTRL key and click the area that you want to clone. It should be similar to the area around where you are cloning something out. (Alternatively, it could be a right click (or something else), depending on your software).
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   Try for the larger areas first. The sky, the wires across the sky, etc.
   • Always remember to make your selection similar to the area that you are cloning over (minus the bad scenery).
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   Watch for distinctive items in your scenery that you need to take into consideration, like tree trunks.
   • To clone a tree or post, check for the angle of it. Take that into consideration when you make your clone selection.
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   Once you feel like you have the basic items cloned out, zoom in closer to your image. You will still be able to see evidence of the items you were trying to get rid of.
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   Increase the size of the brush, if possible, and work on cloning out the remnants. Alternatively, you may need to make the brush smaller. It depends on what you are editing.
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    Once you feel you are done with getting the remnants out, zoom back out so that you can see the full image. If you look closely, you will see some areas where they are obviously cloned.
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    Switch to a larger brush (when possible) and possibly even increase the amount of diffusion of your brush.
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    Continue until you have your desired image.

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