Trouble Cloning With Mask

[Robert Schleif]

It seems like I should be able to create a mask for an image, then choose the clone transformation, then select the mask to control the amount of cloning, and then proceed to select the source point in the image (cloning from and to the same image) and the target point. However, I am not able to select a source point and cannot proceed. When I attempt to clone between images using a mask, I am also unable to select an imput point. Cloning works perfectly normally when I clone without trying to use a mask.

[jsachs]

I'm not sure what problem you are having as I am able to do this here.

Here is what I did --

1) Open images A and B

2) Start Clone on image A

3) Create a mask for image A

4) Set image B as the Source Image

5) Clone from B to A

If you do things in a different order, it is possible you may need to click on Image Browser thumbnail for the input image or the source image to switch between them if the wrong one is being displayed. Also, when the Mask dialog is active, it takes over control of the cursor so you may need to click on the Clone dialog to get it back.

[Robert Schleif]

Your protocol works fine if the mask is created from within the Clone Transformation. For me, a similar series of steps, but attempting to use a preexisting mask does not work.

[jsachs]

Still not seeing the problem here, can you be more specific about what "does not work" means and what procedure you are following?

I did see some cases that seemed confusing at first where I needed to shift click to set the source point on the secondary image to see the cloning circle overlay, but this was consistent with the way the source and destination circles were linked.

[Robert Schleif]

Thank you for your help. The shift-click was necessary to be able to select the cloning point and see the cloning circle. This didn't occur to me. Is there any way to eliminate this need, or to trigger the appearance of a hint (like displaying a window saying to shift click if I've fruitlessly clicked several times)?

[jsachs]

When cloning from the output image to itself, without shift-click there is no way to change the source point, so it can't be eliminated entirely. For the first stroke, you can either click or shift-click to set the source point, but thereafter you need to shift-click to reset the source point.

With a separate input image and split screen display, click and drag only works on the output image while shift-click works on either the input or output image. If you position the cursor near where you have been cloning, the circle will re-appear in the input image since it has a fixed offset from the output point, just like with cloning from an image to itself.

Since you cannot click and drag to copy to a Source Image, the shift-click is not necessary to determine whether you want to set the source point or clone from the source to the target. Therefore, for the next release, I have made the shift optional in this situation. When cloning from the output image to itself, shift-click is still required to reset the source point although it is optional for the first stroke. If in doubt, shift-click to set the source point always works.