What's difference between Clone & Healing Brush?

[Adrianlag]

Can anyone explain what the difference is between the Clone Tool and the Healing Brush? They both seem to do the same thing: i.e. Alt-click to sample an area, then start painting to apply that area to your target point.

Maybe there's some subtle difference I haven't been able to see yet.

many thanks,
Adrian

[willpresley]

Well on a small scale they are quite similar, but the healing brush can do larger areas as a single effort where as with the clone you should be resampling frequently to get a good fix.

[GaryK]

Hi Adrian

The clone tool actually copies the part where the source is located.

The healing brush (this is my understanding of it) uses the texture (or maybe light value) of the sampled area but the colours of the surrounding "brushed" area to fix an area.
I remember learning the healing brush and we actually sampled a green wall (or something) and painted on a face. The initial brush stroke was green but once it "healed" all was fine. I just can't remember if we were sampling for texture or something else.

If you sampled a green wall and cloned, it would just paint the green wall where you were painitng.

[Wendy]

Oh my ...

Lets see if I can remember this ...

Clone tool ... samples the image and just copies it to the new location

Healing Brush ... thats a little bit cleverer. It samples the image, uses the texture from the sampled area and then takes the colour from the around where you are cloning too .. (I think .. :)

Here is a link to more information about it:

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=99806&rl=1

Wendy

[GaryK]

Ah Wendy

Looks like we covered it :D :D . At least we both said the same thing.;)

[Daviskw]

My two cents....lol

spot healing brush uses pixels around the edge of the brush to fill the center... if texture is selected it uses all pixels under the pen to produce a texture.

Healing brush is like the clone in that it samples and copies pixels from a good area but the difference is that it combines the good sample with existing pixels using existing colors and lighting.

Butch

[Wendy]

Hi Gary ...

When its something complicated like this I start to type, do a little research, type some more etc etc and by the time I have finished there are many replies ahead of me ... I really must type faster :)

Wendy

[Adrianlag]

Wendy,
Thanks for the link - it gives a lot of useful info: I will spend more time with the Healing Brush as there's obviously so much more to it than I first realised.

Thanks also to all who replied - this type of forum is so valuable to a newbie like me and the experience of others really helps us learn quickly!

Adrian