Trouble with Cloning in Lightroom 4 (Help Please!)

[JPmkV]

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:

 

[Heitz]

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

 

[JPmkV]

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:

 

[JAC526]

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

 

[Derrel]

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

 

[MLeeK]

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.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

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

 

[snowbear]

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

 

[JAC526]

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.

 

[Garbz]

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.

 

[Scuba]

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.

 

[.SimO.]

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

 

[paigew]

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

 

[cgipson1]

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.

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...

 

[JPmkV]

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: