Cloning in the workflow

All editing can loosely be divided into two categories.  In one category are colour and tonal adjustments, using Curves or Levels or Hue/Saturation or Photo Filters or whatever.  These edits change the appearance of the pixels in the image, and are done with adjustment layers and masks.

In the other category are pixel edits.  These edits actually change the pixels themselves (by moving or copying or blurring or hiding them), and can't be done using adjustment layers - they must be performed directly to the pixels.

In this "pixel editing" category, we find:

• Noise reduction
• Liquifying
• Skin smoothing
• Cloning
• Healing