Preparing to Use the Clone Stamp Tool
Click File > Open to navigate to a photo and open it. Zoom into the image to make the areas that you want to work on clearer and easier to see. In the bar at the bottom of Paint.NET’s interface are two magnifying glass icons. Clicking on the one with the + symbol zooms in a few increments.When you’re zoomed in close, you can either use the scroll bars to the left and bottom of the window to move around the image or select the Hand tool in the Tools palette and then click directly on the image and drag it around.
Select the Clone Stamp Tool
Selecting the Clone Stamp tool from the Tools palette makes the tool options available in the bar above the document window. You can then select a Brush width setting from the drop-down menu. The size you need is dependent upon the size of the area you want to clone. After setting a width, if you drag your cursor over the image a circle displays around the cursor crosshairs showing the selected brush width.When the width is suitable, select a part of the image that you want to copy. Select the area to clone by holding down the Ctrl button and clicking your mouse button. You’ll see that this marks the source area with a circle the size of the Brush width.
Using the Clone Stamp Tool
When you use the Clone Stamp tool to copy regions of pixels from one location to another, the source area and destination area may be on the same layer or on different layers.
Tips for Using the Clone Stamp Tool
The Clone Stamp takes its setting from the Brush Width, Hardness and Antialiasing settings on the Tool Bar.Reducing the Hardness setting softens the edge of the stamp. A low Hardness setting makes stamped areas less obvious.If Antialiasing is disabled, the Hardness setting is ignored.Lower the opacity of the stamp by lowering the opacity of the Primary color and using the left mouse button when cloning. If you use the right mouse button, the opacity of the Secondary color is used.
