Full-photo backgrounds are something you virtually never see in paper scrapping and only rarely see in digital scrapbooking. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that the focus of most shots is located in the center of the photo. Even with panoramic photography, you really don’t want to cover up any portion of the picture with scrap items. However, as a person who always seeks the novel aspects of digital scrapping, I really appreciate the benefits of layouts with full-photo backgrounds. It is so easy to get caught up in the elements and embellishments of a traditional layout; one often forgets about the reason for the page in the first place – the PHOTO.
This tutorial is a basic introduction to the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush as they aid in the recreation of the background of a photo for the purpose of really highlighting the scene behind the memory. It takes you though three layouts that utilized different techniques for achieving the same goal, depending on the size and quality of the background in the sampled photo.

CREATING FULL PHOTO BACKGROUNDS: Part I
<--------- the simple s t r e t c h ---------->

1. OPEN your photo file

2. Create a NEW FILE with [rectangular] dimensions, drag and resize the photo to fit [top to bottom/left to right].

3. Use the RECTANGULAR MARQUEE tool to select an area to stretch.

4. Choose EDIT>TRANSFORM>SCALE, click and drag appropriate box .
*** In this case, I used the left middle and stretched out to the edge of the page.

5. Adjust the colors to taste and add title, journaling, or any other design element and you’re done!

CREATING FULL PHOTO BACKGROUNDS: Part II
busy busy background

1. OPEN your photo file

2. Create a NEW FILE and use the MOVE tool to drag the photo into the new file. Resize as necessary (EDIT>TRANSFORM>SCALE) to fit top to bottom and arrange to best suit where you want to add to your photo background.

3. LAYER>DUPLICATE the photo layer to create a copy and MOVE accordingly.
***In this case, I used TRANSFORM>FLIP HORIZONTAL to flip the duplicated photo horizontally and then aligned it touching the left edge of the original***

4. LINK the two layers and adjust the size as necessary.
***In this example, I used EDIT>TRANSFORM>SCALE to enlarge and get rid of most of the copied girl at left.***

5. Use the CLONE STAMP tool to paint over any small areas as necessary.
***In this case, the pants at the bottom left and a bit of red from the hat in the left edge ***

6. To rid yourself of the line between the layers, MERGE the layers and use a small brush at 50-75% opacity to BLUR.

7. Adjust the colors to taste and add title, journaling, or any other design element and you’re done!

CREATING FULL PHOTO BACKGROUNDS: Part III
water, water, everywhere

1. OPEN your photo file

2. Create a NEW FILE with dimensions of your desired finished page.
***I like to use 5 ½ to 7 ½ x 9 ½ so I can still print a standard 8x10***

3. Use the MOVE tool to drag the photo into the new file and resize if necessary (EDIT>TRANSFORM>SCALE) to fit top to bottom and arrange to best suit where you want to add to your photo background.

4. LAYER>DUPLICATE the photo layer to create a copy and MOVE accordingly.
***In this case, I used TRANSFORM>FLIP HORIZONTAL to flip the duplicated photo horizontally and then aligned it touching the right edge of the original***

5. Hopefully, this creates a good area for you to copy a large portion of background. If it indeed accomplishes this, LINK the two layers, LAYER>MERGE them, and use the marquee tool to SELECT the largest area possible to copy.

6. EDIT>COPY and EDIT>PASTE into a new layer.
Move the layer over the foreground you want to erase.
***In this case, I moved it to cover the people on the right***

7. Use the CLONE STAMP tool to paint over the small areas that may remain.
***In this case, the arm of the little boy***

8. Use HEALING BRUSH tool targeted at a nearby area to correct any obvious stamp lines from cloning.

9. An easy way to rid yourself of the line between the layers is to MERGE the layers and use a small brush at 50-75% opacity to BLUR.

10. Adjust the colors to taste and add title, journaling, or any other design element and you’re done!

DEFINITIONS

Clone Stamp : Takes a sample of an image or layer for you to apply in another image or layer. With each stroke of the tool, more of the sample is painted on.
1. Select the layer that contains the area you would like to clone from.
2. Select the Clone Stamp tool in the tool palette.
3. Choose your Brush tip. (You can use any brush tip with the Clone Stamp tool so you have a lot of control over the size, opacity, and flow settings of the area you clone.)
4. Click on a sampling point and after holding down Alt to choose.
5. Select the layer you would like to paint the cloning onto. *I highly recommend opening a brand new layer to paint on. (See Quick Tips below)
6. Check or uncheck the Aligned box in the options bar as appropriate. When you check the box, you will start with the original/current sampling point with each click of the mouse, no matter how many times you stop and resume painting. That is, if you start at one point and move the brush below that point in your cloned area, it will move with you and start below the sampling point as well. When Aligned is left unchecked, you'll reuse the same sampled pixels each time you paint.
7. Click and drag over area to clone.

Healing Brush* : Allows you to correct imperfections, in essence, making them disappear into the image. It is similar to the clone stamp in that you use it to paint with sampled pixels. The Healing Brush is more powerful in that it can match the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the source pixels, resulting in a seamless blend. *This tutorial describes only the basic Healing Brush, with the Mode set at Normal and the Source at Sampled.
1. Select the layer that contains the area you would like to heal.
2. Select the Healing Brush in the tool palette.
3. Choose your Brush tip.
4. Click on a sampling point and after holding down Alt to choose.
5. Click and drag over area to heal.
Blur : Softens hard edges or areas in an image to reduce detail.
Link : Links two or more layers/sets in order to move their contents together, copy, paste, align, merge, apply transformations to, and create clipping masks from them.
1. Select the first layer/set you want to link in the Layers palette.
2. Click in the column immediately to the left of any layers you want to link to the first layer. (A link icon will appear in each box that you choose).

QUICK TIPS

1. Get into the habit of opening a New File and dragging your original photo into it. This will preserve the original photo for future use.
2. Make cloning as easy as possible by using the select tool to copy-paste large areas into a new layer if possible (or use the patch tool).
3. ALWAYS clone in a brand new layer. Not only can you start over by just deleting the layer, but you also give yourself more room to test blending options for the most seamless application.
4. Learn when use the Aligned check/uncheck box.
5. Choose your source areas wisely and use the selection tool to your advantage. In the case of Healing, if there is a strong contrast near the edges of the area you want to heal, select an area a bit larger than that area (but not into the contrasting colors) before you paint. If you follow the boundary of contrasting pixels well enough, the selection will prevent colors from bleeding in from the outside. When Cloning, select and edit in Quick Mask mode to allow you clone in between small or delicate areas with success.
ü Pay attention to the background setting of your photos at the time of the shoot. Determine if the moment would warrant a full photo background and/or on-photo journaling. You can always recenter the photo later and it is A LOT more simple to do that than Cloning and Healing!