Digital Imaging Basics

The Clone Tool is the photographers friend.  As we will see in this set of exercises we can remove grass, remove ewes, and even move lambs from one pasture/layer/image to another.

Work slowly and carefully under high magnification.  Be aware of your brush selection.  Take your time.  I have worked for half a day cloning an image.  I'm sure that there are others who have worked much longer.  Once you learn to be comfortable with the Clone Tool you will find that you will use it without even thinking about it.

To do these exercises you will want to "right mouse" each image and paste it into PhotoShop Elements.  Save the file before you start working with it...and then save it several times as you are working.  When I am doing work such as this I save with military time in the file name:  20080219_1934_RemoveEwe.

  Remove the Ewe:  In this exercise we will remove the mother sheep.  The question that you need to ask yourself is "What will I put in place of the mother"?  It's not the cloning out that is difficult.  What is difficult is the replacement.  Choose carefully.

Replacing the ewe with pasture won't be that difficult.  But you do need to be aware of the color of the pasture that you are placing, and the focus, and you don't want to see repeating patterns.

The top of the ewe's head is going to be a bit more difficult.  In addition to replacing the log you will need to decide if there is a void and a shadow under the log.

You also need to look for shadows and other artifacts of the removal.

When you are completed also remove the text.

Consider saving this image as .psd before you 'save it for the web' and upload it to your on-line photo album.

Remove the Grass:  In this image there is a bit of distraction in front of the little lamb.

Remove the blades of grass that you think should be removed.

Work under high magnification.  Work slowly and carefully.  Pretend that you are removing grass from your Mother.

Interesting challenge under the ear?

And now that you have completed the difficult part remove the text. Hah.  Yes, I really mean it! 

Consider whether or not you should save this file as .psd.  Would you like to do this work over again?  Or would you like to work from a saved .psd file?  When you have finished with the lamb remove the text from the bottom of the image.

Save the resulting file "for the web" and publish to your on-line gallery.

Using the final image from the first exercise (the one where you removed the ewe) as the 'from' image, clone the little lamb into this lonely pasture.

It's really sort of simple.  This will make you be much more aware of layers than you have been.  I suspect that there will be a bit of frustration...perhaps a curse word or two...but in the end I know that you can do it.

When placing the little lamb notice that there is an area of the image that is in sharper focus than the rest...perhaps this is where the little lamb should be placed. 

You also have the opportunity to place the lamb dead center or off into a 'third' section of the image.  Try to avoid 'dead center'.

Of course I want you to remove the text.  You should consider whether or not you want to save this as .psd before you upload to your on-line photo gallery.  I would (save it as .psd).

In the end you should have one image in your photo gallery with both a mother and a lamb, and two images of just lambs.

How did you do?  Fun?  Are you starting to see the light?