you've never tried it before, the stamp tool is a quick and easy way to correct your photographs before you upload them to your favorite social networking site, or before finalizing any digital scrapbooking pages. Imagine a two-click-fix for acne, or perhaps you have a small amount of damage on your photo that you would like to remove. The stamping tool, not unlike the healing tool, can easily help you in these difficult situations.
The Stamp Tool: Understanding What it Does
The stamp tool is essentially a brush that, instead of painting a solid color, samples a specific chunk of pixels from elsewhere in the document - or even an entirely different document - and clones them upon your image. Like a regular brush, you can change the hardness (1-100%, 1 being the softest), the size, tip shape and even blending modes. However, in photoshop cs5 tutorials addition to this, the stamp tool can sample from not only the active layer, but an entire, multi-layered document.
The fact that it can easily sample from a multi-layered document can present a few problems though. Advanced users can easily take advantage of this feature, but new users might quickly find that they find their document spattered with strange effects. This is largely due to the fact that you might forget that this tool will sample adjustment layers as well, lending to some unwanted changes in color, hue, saturation, because essentially you will be applying the effect to the area twice.
Still, this is a tool worth getting to know, because you'll find it is great for airbrushing away blemishes, dirt, damage, and several other unwanted things in photos.
The fact that it can easily sample from a multi-layered document can present a few problems though. Advanced users can easily take advantage of this feature, but new users might quickly find that they find their document spattered with strange effects. This is largely due to the fact that you might forget that this tool will sample adjustment layers as well, lending to some unwanted changes in color, hue, saturation, because essentially you will be applying the effect to the area twice.
Still, this is a tool worth getting to know, because you'll find it is great for airbrushing away blemishes, dirt, damage, and several other unwanted things in photos.
How To: Photoshop Stamp Tool (A Practical Guide)
There aren't a lot of areas when you cannot simply use the healing tool instead of the stamp tool, and in most cases the healing tool is far superior. However, learning the tricks of the trade with the stamp tool has its moments of usefulness. For example, say you're doing a wedding scrapbook layout, and there are a few dark spots on the close up of your blushing bride. Rather than trying to use the healing tool to slowly lighten up the spots in hopes of them looking natural, try setting your stamp tool to to the settings below:
Opacity: 50%
Hardness: 50%
Blending Mode: Luminosity
Then, alt-click in an area where the skin is the color you wish to match. Generally this is an area very close to the edge of the area you want to match, otherwise you might get some unwanted, and very noticeable differences. What this does is easily allows you to lighten the dark spots without changing the color out of the natural skin tone. Here's an example of a before:
And after:
Opacity: 50%
Hardness: 50%
Blending Mode: Luminosity
Then, alt-click in an area where the skin is the color you wish to match. Generally this is an area very close to the edge of the area you want to match, otherwise you might get some unwanted, and very noticeable differences. What this does is easily allows you to lighten the dark spots without changing the color out of the natural skin tone. Here's an example of a before:
Helpful Hint: If you find that the spot has a color to it, such as a red blemish or a purple bruise, the luminosity setting on the stamp tool will simply change the color to a much more bright, noticeable spot. How do you work around this? Simply set your blending mode to color and re-brush over the area, which will change the color back to that of a natural skin color. As always, this is going to take a bit of practice and a light touch. Don't try to remove the blemish or shadow completely - just make it a little less noticeable.
References and Image Credits
How Do I Get a Picture From 66% Size to 100% Size?
You might have noticed that Photoshop has a habit of showing your images at 66%, and no matter how hard you try you can't seem to get it to show up at 100%. Believe it or not, this is a fairly common problem that many people run into when first using Photoshop, and it has an extremely easy fix.
Why Does Photosohop Do This?
Why does Photoshop pick certain intervals to display images at? If you've opened enough documents, you'll notice that Photoshop actually has a few favorite "distance" intervals to display images at, the main three being 33.3%, 50% and 66.7%. These three specific, predefined distances allow Photoshop to show your image with the least amount of distortion.
Photoshop will normally pick the size that is closest - but not over - the amount that can be shown without clipping off the canvas. For instance, if your image can be shown easily at 66% without clipping off of the canvas in any direction, Photoshop will pick 66%. If it cannot be shown easily at 66%, it will round down to 50%. Most other distances between these, from 1-99% will almost always show a slight amount of inaccuracy, such as blured or slightly crooked lines and strange blurs.
Photoshop will normally pick the size that is closest - but not over - the amount that can be shown without clipping off the canvas. For instance, if your image can be shown easily at 66% without clipping off of the canvas in any direction, Photoshop will pick 66%. If it cannot be shown easily at 66%, it will round down to 50%. Most other distances between these, from 1-99% will almost always show a slight amount of inaccuracy, such as blured or slightly crooked lines and strange blurs.
Method One
Still, it is easiest to work on details of pictures and get the most accurate view by viewing something at the 100% zoom setting. How do you fix the issue to see the actual size of your image? Well, it's as easy as using Photoshop's various zoom settings, of course! There are a few ways you can go about doing this.
The first and foremost is to press CTRL and your + button (CMD and the + button for Mac users), which will allow you to zoom in to pre-defined zoom levels, one of them being 100%. Simply tap as many times as you need to get to 100%. If you zoom in too far, you can simply hit CTRL and the - size (Mac users, just hit CMD and the - button) to zoom out at the same intervals.
The first and foremost is to press CTRL and your + button (CMD and the + button for Mac users), which will allow you to zoom in to pre-defined zoom levels, one of them being 100%. Simply tap as many times as you need to get to 100%. If you zoom in too far, you can simply hit CTRL and the - size (Mac users, just hit CMD and the - button) to zoom out at the same intervals.
Method Two
Another easy way is to look to the bottom left of your screen where you will see a small box that reads out 66.7% It should look like this:
Simply click within this box and type 100% like so, and then hit enter when finished!
Method Three
A third, easy way to do this is simply to hit the Z on your keyboard (this is the shortcut for zoom), or click the icon on your left side menu that looks like a magnifying glass, as shown here:
At the top of your screen, your tool-based menu should change to show a variety of options. Simply click "Actual Pixels" for a one-click fix.
References & Image Credits
References: Personal experience as a graphics designer.
Image Credits: All screenshots were taken by Amber Neely and are for demonstration purposes only.
Image Credits: All screenshots were taken by Amber Neely and are for demonstration purposes only.
