Clone brush in PSCS

[andyapc]

I am working on an 8x8 transparent canvas (layer 1) with a 4x6 photo (close up picture of DD and her dad - background is black in it) in the middle of it (layer 2). I did CTRL+click on my photo layer to select just the photo (got marching ants around it) and applied the diffuse b/w filter in it from Virtual Photographer.

There is a whitish section of the photo background that I want to make black to match the rest of the photo background. I clicked on the Clone Stamp Tool, chose a brush and did ALT+click on the section I wanted to keep and then proceeded to click & brush over the unwanted section (is this how it works??) But, the unwanted section goes right to the edge of my photo. When I brush over it, the black is "bleeding" (don't know how else to describe it) over the edge of my photo onto what looks like my transparent background - but I think it's just the blank area of Layer 2 that is not covered by the photo because no black is showing on my transparent Layer 1 in my Layers Pallette.

I tried to do this cloning prior to applying the b/w filter (I thought maybe the filter had something to do with it) but I'm getting the same results, only in color.

How do I fix this, or stop this from happening?

[Kristen]

Do you still have the "marching ants" around the photo? I tested this out, and only got the "bleed" when the photo wasn't selected.

If you *do* have the "marching ants" I don't know why this is happening, but I can give you a way to fix it.

Before you start cloning, Ctrl-click on the photo layer.
Go to the Select menu and choose Save Selection...
Give it a name (I used clean edge)
Do your cloning, not worrying about the edges.
Go to the Select menu and choose Load Selection... In the drop-down menu, choose your selection. Click on the Invert checkbox.
You should now have "marching ants" in a border around the photo.
Press the Delete key.
This should have removed any "bleed" you had.

Let us know if this helped - if not, we'll try something else.

[Emma]

Two things jump to mind

1. Do you have the All Layers box checked in the Options Bar? If so, turn it off

2. You can lock the layer pixels in the Layers Palette by clicking the little checkerboard icon next to the padlock. That will prevent any new editing from spilling off the existing layer contents

keep us updated. And WOW, way to go using detail in describing your problem! Makes it so much easier to troubleshoot