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This innocent-looking little fellow (left) is the clone stamp button from Photoshop, and also your gateway to lots of creative fun.

In case you don’t know, the clone stamp acts as a kind of brush that copies from one area of an image - or from another image all together. Have you ever seen a cartoon where someone is painting with tartan paint? They dip their brush into a bucket and perfect checks appear on the wall. How we used to laugh at that - and now? It’s practically a reality.

For example, if you have two pictures of people, you can set up the clone stamp to copy the face of one when you paint over the face of the second. It’s rather hard to describe, so instead, if you are not sure what I mean, I suggest you give it a go:

• Open two images in Photoshop - it doesn’t matter what they are.
• Select the clone stamp on your main toolbar.
• On a PC, hold down the ALT button while clicking the clone stamp anywhere on the first picture. On a MAC, it’s Option and click.
• Move your cursor to the second picture, and start ‘painting’. You will see that your movements are echoed on the first picture, taking the point where you clicked as reference, and that the second picture is now overlaid with traces from it.

You can vary the size of the sample area just as you would change your brushes, at top left of the interface. You can also alter the opacity here. With some experimentation, and combined with your knowledge of area selection and layers, the world is now your oyster. For example, you can use photo images to create interesting backgrounds for your drawings, or vice versa.

Let me know how you get on!