Putting a person onto a plain background using Picnik's clone tool

There are several ways to accomplish this, but I'm illustrating it using the clone tool on Picnik.

The video jumps in very quickly, so what I've done at first is create a side-by-side collage, with the photo I want to clone in the left pane and no photo in the right. I've chosen a gray background using the background colour tool, but of course, you can use whatever colour suits your project. I've also set the collage to "high" quality so once I crop the end result, it will still be fairly large.
This same technique would also work to add a person to an existing photo that is used as background. (rather than the empty collage space, put the background photo there and clone the person onto it.)

Technical note. I originally created this video for display on Flickr. The entire video, unedited, runs for about 3.5 minutes. I edited out about 30 seconds, and then changed the video to playback at double speed to get it into the 90 second limit on Flickr. So, it took me less than 4 minutes to do this in real life, in case you are wondering. :)

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• picnik
• clone
• tool
• editing
• photo

[Weststartv2]

How do I change the color of the backround on a picture?

[curiouskiwi]

@Weststartv2 do you mean like on the technique I'm showing? When you create your blank collage, you can choose the background color over on the left side.

Or do you mean on a photo that already has a background? Have you tried the Doodle tool to paint in a new background colour?

[heba0711]

but the clone is premium :(

[curiouskiwi]

@heba0711 yes, it is. 

[Colour4sphere]

u are going too fast....where to click to choose the background?

[curiouskiwi]

@Colour4sphere I skipped over that bit. What you need to do is create a new Collage.  On that screen, you can choose the size and colour of the background. Add your photo to the left side and then click "Done" to go to the Edit screen. From there, you can use the clone tool, following the video. Hope that helps.

[BeatlesLuvr17]

@heba0711 yes, that's what i thought at first, but since Picnik is closing, premium stuff is freeeee!! :D

[kevotheawesomeboss]

its free now cuz picnik is closing

[selenabug1]

how much did this cost?

[MrsCreamSodaLover]

@Kachelconcurrent when you go on where it says upload photo at the top there will be a collage option :)

[charleymondon]

Thanks, helped loads have you dont any vidioe's on how to put a background because I need help with that aswell.

[Kachelconcurrent]

Where do I find "collage"?

[curiouskiwi]

@rangauthier Fair enough. I was trying to show how to make this effect, but I reaiise that some people would never use it. :)