# Trouble with Cloning in Lightroom 4 (Help Please!)



## JPmkV (Oct 9, 2012)

I'll get right down to it. I am working the cloning tool in lightroom 4, and I'm getting frustrated because I am not able to completely clone things in my pictures completely out. (I don't know how else to put it) Basically when I try to clone a section of the picture out the underlying image still shows through... 

Here are a few screenshots to show you what I'm talking about..

this is the unedited picture. I am trying to remove the bro chugging his beer (top left), and the car (top right)






showing all the spots where I used the cloning tool





This is showing the picture after cloning to the best of my ability





It is obvious to see that the cloning did not completely remove the white car on the right hand side of the photo. As you can see in the screenshot, I am using the "clone" option, not "heal" and the opacity is turned up to 100%. What else can I do to remove the rest of the unwanted image??

Any help is appreciated! :thumbup::mrgreen:


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## Heitz (Oct 9, 2012)

I'm not sure, because I haven't tried, but this may be due to Lightroom's less sophisticated cloning.  Do you have photoshop? You won't get this problem with photoshop


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## JPmkV (Oct 9, 2012)

Heitz said:


> I'm not sure, because I haven't tried, but this may be due to Lightroom's less sophisticated cloning.  Do you have photoshop? You won't get this problem with photoshop



I don't have photoshop  :thumbdown::er:
I am on a pretty tight budget at the moment. I've already deleted and re-downloaded lightroom 3 times for the free trial.. haha
I'll look into photoshop for sure. Thanks for the suggestion :thumbup:


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## JAC526 (Oct 9, 2012)

I agree that Lightroom's cloning is definitely not as good as photoshop.  I ran into the same issues.


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## Derrel (Oct 9, 2012)

I think the entire cloning situation in Lightroom is ridiculously poor...it's poorly,poorly implemented in multiple ways.


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## MLeeK (Oct 9, 2012)

I don't think LR's cloning is made for this kind of cloning. It's not really ideal for it, as you've found out.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 9, 2012)

Its not even a cloning tool in LR4. Its a spot remover!

Altho LR4 suffices for 95% of my images, the other 4-5% have to go to the CS gods


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## snowbear (Oct 9, 2012)

I'm not really familiar with GIMP, other than it is free.  It may have a cloning tool similar to PS's.


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## JAC526 (Oct 9, 2012)

Derrel said:


> I think the entire cloning situation in Lightroom is ridiculously poor...it's poorly,poorly implemented in multiple ways.



And honestly it would be so easy to set it up like photoshop.  Smells like marketing and fears of product cannibalism from adobe.


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## Garbz (Oct 10, 2012)

If you're on a budget visit GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program. The GIMP Resynthesizer plugin (download separately) works pretty much as well as Photoshop's content aware fill. You should be able to get rid of those cars quite easily and without selling a kidney since they are both free.


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## Scuba (Oct 10, 2012)

You can easily fix this. Basically the was I have found it to work is the circle you choose to clone over LR uses about the outer 20% to blend. So to fix that problem you need to overlap your circles better and make sure there is nothing you are trying to get rid of in that outer 20% unless you are going to overlap another circle.  I would take a screen shot and show what I am talking about but am on my phone.


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## .SimO. (Oct 10, 2012)

I have personally had this issue numerous times.  It seems to only take effect if the cloning tool is utilized an overabundant amount.  It is something with the processing and delay and the result is something with the transparency.  I have a new rig for photo editing and haven't had this problem since but then again, this happened awhile back and since, I don't do much cloning.

Scuba might have it nailed for your situation


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## paigew (Oct 10, 2012)

yeah that happens to me too. sometimes it works better if you make the circle larger. what I do sometimes is set it so you cannot see the guides and then move the clone spot around until it looks good. I agree that lr sucks for cloning. Which I hate because I clone a lot


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## cgipson1 (Oct 10, 2012)

JAC526 said:


> Derrel said:
> 
> 
> > I think the entire cloning situation in Lightroom is ridiculously poor...it's poorly,poorly implemented in multiple ways.
> ...



Why would they put the same tools in a lesser, cheaper product? There has to be some reason to buy photoshop, right? LR was never designed for pixel level editing...


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

Wow! Thank you everyone for all your input! I am disappointed that Lightroom's cloning tool doesn't work for things like this, but I'm glad it wasn't me just being ignorant. Looks like my best option at the moment is to go with the GIMP program until I have the means to get PS.
Thanks again everyone! :thumbup:


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 10, 2012)

cgipson1 said:


> JAC526 said:
> 
> 
> > Derrel said:
> ...





Yeah adobe wouldn't have much business sense if their LR4 and CS6 had the same purpose with the same functions.

But i want my Tundra pickup to accelerate and handle like a Lambo


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## Rwsphotos (Oct 10, 2012)

A lot of thought and reserch needs to go in to buying your editing. There is no one program that will fit every ones bill.  I personal use and love LR 4. Yes it is cheaper than cs but not lesser. It was made for photograpers to organize and adjust their raw settings quickly and effeciently.   Now if you need that pixel editing to clone and such then LR is not fir you. Still leaves you a nice basket of choices depending on your needs.    On top of LR 4 I also have Cs5 master suite, which only gets used for cloneing which I dont do but once in a blue moon and for removing my green screen when doing portraits. Choice of editing is up to you and your need.


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## Rwsphotos (Oct 10, 2012)

2WheelPhoto said:
			
		

> Yeah adobe wouldn't have much business sense if their LR4 and CS6 had the same purpose with the same functions.
> 
> But i want my Tundra pickup to accelerate and handle like a Lambo



Lol yeah let me know when you find one that does and I trade my buick in on it ( grin)


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 10, 2012)

Rwsphotos said:


> A lot of thought and reserch needs to go in to buying your editing. There is no one program that will fit every ones bill.  I personal use and love LR 4. Yes it is cheaper than cs but not lesser. It was made for photograpers to organize and adjust their raw settings quickly and effeciently.   Now if you need that pixel editing to clone and such then LR is not fir you. Still leaves you a nice basket of choices depending on your needs.    *On top of LR 4 I also have Cs5 master suite, which only gets used for cloning which I dont do but once in a blue moon *and for removing my green screen when doing portraits. Choice of editing is up to you and your need.



+1, same here


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## JAC526 (Oct 10, 2012)

2WheelPhoto said:


> cgipson1 said:
> 
> 
> > JAC526 said:
> ...



I don't think a cloning tool makes LR into a lambo.


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 10, 2012)

JAC526 said:


> 2WheelPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > cgipson1 said:
> ...



Yes sir, I agree but the cloning tool is not the only thing CS6 does either. But no matter what, software tools don't make a Lambo


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## JAC526 (Oct 10, 2012)

If only they did.


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

So after briefly messing around with the cloning tool on GIMP and a quick re-edit LR4 this is what I came up with...

Before:




After:




I could take more time and get it better. And after seeing the image blown up larger I noticed that the driver side mirror was overlapped with a clone. Anyway, just wanted to post up these before/after shots as a reference for anyone else having a similar issue. :thumbup:


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 10, 2012)

Edit looks great


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

And now that I look at it even more, the reedit after GIMP came out incredibly dull in comparison. I imported the original RAW file to GIMP, edited, then exported the image to LR as a jpeg. Should I do it differently to get a better quality image?


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## KmH (Oct 10, 2012)

GIMP can't do Raw files, but I agree the car is very dull in the edit.

Try to avoid exporting to Lightroom as a JPEG. Lightroom's Develop module is a Raw converter and is optimized for images that have a 16-bit color depth. JPEGs only have an 8-bit color depth.

So if you can export to Lightroom as a 16-bit depth TIFF. Oops! IIRC GIMP can't do 16-bit depth.

FWIW.
In Photoshop the Clone tool, like most Photoshop tools, has many tool options available.
The Clone brush options include - tip size, shape, scattering, texture, roundness, hardness, spacing, blending mode, flow and opacity. There is a Clone tool airbrush feature.
There are also Clone Source options - like x/y coordinates, width, height, alignment, angle, opacity, darken, lighten, difference, overlay. Up to 5 different Clone Source options can be set. 
Since Photoshop can do layers one can choose to sample all layers, the current layer, or the current and below layer.


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## Scuba (Oct 10, 2012)

JPmkV said:


> Wow! Thank you everyone for all your input! I am disappointed that Lightroom's cloning tool doesn't work for things like this, but I'm glad it wasn't me just being ignorant. Looks like my best option at the moment is to go with the GIMP program until I have the means to get PS.
> Thanks again everyone! :thumbup:



Did you try what I suggested in LR?


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

Scuba said:


> Did you try what I suggested in LR?



Yes actually. I just went back and tried again. This time I used much smaller clones, and a lot more of them! :thumbup::mrgreen:

Here are the results, and I must admit, they came out pretty darn good!

Showing all the clones:





And the finished product!




Thank you sir! :thumbup::thumbup:


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## pic_chick (Oct 10, 2012)

All these edits look good but.....  vignette was added before you guys did the clone work. some of the cloning pulled the darker area further into the image giving it an hourglass like shape around the car that odd.


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

pic_chick said:


> All these edits look good but.....  vignette was added before you guys did the clone work. some of the cloning pulled the darker area further into the image giving it an hourglass like shape around the car that odd.




In the last edit the vignette was added after all cloning was done. In fact any and all editing was done after the cloning process.


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## Majeed Badizadegan (Oct 10, 2012)

Man, next time get him to move his car to somewhere with no distractions. Ultimate fix, getting it right SOOC


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## 2WheelPhoto (Oct 10, 2012)

Rotanimod said:


> Man, next time get him to move his car to somewhere with no distractions. *Ultimate fix, getting it right **SOOC*


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## bhop (Oct 10, 2012)

You do know that photoshop has a trial too? .. just like the one you've been re-installing for Lightroom..


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

Rotanimod said:


> Man, next time get him to move his car to somewhere with no distractions. Ultimate fix, getting it right SOOC



:thumbup::mrgreen: This was takin at h2oi. thousands of cars crammed into a very small camp ground, and the owner of this car wasn't with his car at the moment. Thanks for the advice though. 



bhop said:


> You do know that photoshop has a trial too? .. just like the one you've been re-installing for Lightroom..



I did not know that. Thank you! :thumbup:


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## KmH (Oct 10, 2012)

There is some purple fringing in the grill area, the dash and windshield can stand some additional cloning, and the horizontal framing isn't helping.
Clone some more, do some local sharpening, crop, mat, and frame it.


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## JPmkV (Oct 10, 2012)

:hail:


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## Troyceratops (Nov 3, 2013)

snowbear said:


> I'm not really familiar with GIMP, other than it is free.  It may have a cloning tool similar to PS's.



GIMP is a FREE and powerful editing tool with an excellent cloning tool. However, its biggest drawback is that it doesn't handle RAW images, only jpg, tiff and png. If you're looking for something on a professional level, your best bet is going to be cs.


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## snowbear (Nov 3, 2013)

Troyceratops said:


> snowbear said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not really familiar with GIMP, other than it is free.  It may have a cloning tool similar to PS's.
> ...



WOW - first post is a resurrection.  Congrat's!!  :mrgreen:


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## KmH (Nov 3, 2013)

Yep, it's a 1 year old thread, but it still contains a lot of useful information.

Unless you use a previous version - CS no longer exists.

It's now CC - Creative Cloud

There are several free Raw converters available to compliment GIMP - like Irfanview and Rawtherapee


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