Use the Clone Stamp tool

You can use the Clone Stamp tool to copy pixel values from one place and time and apply them at another place and time. For example, you can use the Clone Stamp tool to remove wires by copying from a clear patch of sky, or you can create a herd of cows from one cow in the source footage and offset the copies in time.

Angie Taylor provides a tutorial on the Digital Arts website that shows how to use tracking data and the Clone Stamp tool to apply copies of an object in a scene while matching a camera move: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_angieclonetrack.

The Clone Stamp tool samples the pixels from a source layer and applies the sampled pixel values to a target layer; the target layer can be the same layer or a different layer in the same composition. If the source layer and target layer are the same, the Clone Stamp tool samples paint strokes and effects in the source layer, in addition to the layer source image.

As with all paint tools, you use the Clone Stamp tool in the Layer panel.

If the source layer and target layer are different layers, open each layer in a different viewer. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+N (Mac OS) to split and lock the current viewer.

You can identify what result a stroke will have before you make it by using the clone source overlay, a semi-transparent image of the source layer.

Displaying the clone source overlay while cloning between two different layers

A.

Clone source overlay

B.

Current stroke point

C.

Current sample point

Select Aligned in the Paint panel to make the position of the sample point (Clone Position) change for subsequent strokes to match the movement of the Clone Stamp tool in the target Layer panel. In other words, with the Aligned option selected, you can use multiple strokes to paint on one copy of the sampled pixels. In contrast, deselecting the Aligned option causes the sample point to stay the same between strokes, meaning that you begin painting on pixels from the original sample point each time you drag again to create a new clone stroke.

For example, select Aligned to use multiple clone strokes to copy one whole cow—which would be difficult to do in one continuous stroke—and deselect Aligned to copy one flower into dozens of places in the target layer to make a field of flowers, using one clone stroke per copy.

Select Lock Source Time to clone a single source frame (at composition time Source Time); deselect Lock Source Time to clone subsequent frames, with a time offset (Source Time Shift) between the source frame and the target frame. The clone source time automatically loops back to the starting sample point when the current sampling point goes beyond the end of the duration of the source layer. This looping is especially helpful when you have a lot of frames to repair in the target layer but only a few good frames in the source layer.

Each clone stroke includes properties in the Timeline panel that are unique to the Clone Stamp tool and correspond to settings made in the Paint panel before the clone stroke is created:

Clone Source

The sampled layer.

Clone Position

The (x, y) location of the sample point within the source layer.

Clone Time

The composition time at which the source layer is sampled. This property appears only when Lock Source Time is selected.

Clone Time Shift

The time offset between the sampled frame and the target frame. This property appears only when Lock Source Time is not selected.

After clone strokes have been created, their properties in the Timeline panel can be modified and animated. For example, you can clone a bird flying across the screen by cloning it in one frame, tracking the motion of the bird, and then linking the Clone Position property to the Attach Point property of tracker with an expression.