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Known Participant
May 23, 2011
Open for Voting

P: Image Hose - Extend Clone Stamp tool

  • May 23, 2011
  • 70 replies
  • 3226 views

Nearly all other serious digital paint programs have some kind of randomized image "stamp" feature (Painter calls it Image Hose). This is seriously lacking in Photoshop. I can see a very sooth implementation by extending the Clone Stamp tool. You already have multiple clone sources - in its simplest implementation, it should be fairly straightforward to allow the user to define multiple clone sources and then randomize which one is being used each time the brush is "stamped" onto the layer. Add angle and size jitter and other randomization features like we find in the brushes palette and we're off to the races.

A better user experience would be to define "stamp sets". This would require a new palette which would open into a kind of "tree view". For each Stamp Set you could add multiple pixel-based images, similar to the way you define brush presets. Their thumbnails would then be visible, indented under the Stamp Set in the "tree view".

When a particular Stamp Set is selected, you have your jitter controls and other behavioural controls which get saved with that stamp set. Stamp sets can be saved like Brushes and other Preset Manager items. You could even offer a nice automation tool for importing a sequence of PSDs into a single stamp set.

You could extend this even further by exposing the same Layer Effects to your Stamp Sets. Unlike a layer effect, which applies, for example, a Drop Shadow to all the pixels of the layer at once; the Stamp Set effects would apply the effect(s) to each instance of a stamp. As an example, the difference would be that if you apply a drop shadow to your Stamp Set, if you stamped one item over top of another, its drop shadow would overlap the previous item, whereas if you just applied the Drop Shadow to the entire layer, there would be no "depth" between two "stamp" instances on the same layer.

Note that I'm not suggesting that each instance of a stamp would be an editable object or a smart object instance. Just like when you use the Brush tool, the results are "merged" into the active layer's pixels more-or-less instantly (or at least, once the mouse button is released to terminate the brush stroke).

70 replies

romantic_image0D4D
Participant
October 12, 2015


Hi Photoshop team,
I have another request, a tool that could very helpful is a spay tool that works with images without background, such as trees, bubbles, rocks, etc... The same palette as the brushes one but with images.
Thank you.

Samy
Thomas Luth
Participating Frequently
July 10, 2015
I agree, either adding a color option, like something you would check in the brushes panel, or having a separate color brush, with all the angle, rotate, scatter options, would pretty much solve this issue.
Participating Frequently
July 10, 2015
Why can't we just have the brushes in color and able to pick up any selection to use as a brush on the fly? That would solve it and greatly improve Photoshop. More than all the CC 2014 and 2015 updates combined.
BTW This feature already existed in Deluxe Paint in 1988.
Participant
August 14, 2014
It should be more like a brush, but with RGB color png image as base...
It would make everything much easier for photomanipulation (digital art in general) and graphic design as well.
I`m guessing it would also open a market for custom brushes-clipart sets (just like for mock-ups, custom shapes and brushes etc. and stock images).
Participant
August 14, 2014
I will! 🙂
Known Participant
August 13, 2014
Right on - that's exactly the topic of this post! You can help by upvoting the post, and sharing the link to your Social Networks. If it gets enough votes, Adobe might take a look. As long as this is a little "edge use case" it will get no developer love.
Participant
August 13, 2014


Hi


I was wondering if it`s possible to improve Photoshop Brushes to be more like Corel Painter Nozzles?


Thanks

Participating Frequently
May 30, 2014


I would like to see a random brush added to Photoshop, a brush that lays down more than one brush tip shape in a stroke, something that lets the user choose which brush tips to include and how randomly weighted they should be.
Known Participant
April 7, 2014
Yep, this has been around for ages. But it's kinda crappy, and I'm not even sure it will work in modern versions of Photoshop.
c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 7, 2014
»Hi Christoph - there are no scripting capabilities that address the Image Hose use case.«
Certainly not perfectly but one can distribute Layers/Smart Objects along Paths for example.