Clone Stamp Tool not working

[DaveN]

hi guys
just ran into a weird problem tonite
Been using the clone stamp to edit photos of night time images where the camera moved and produced star trails or double stars.
resulting in a reasonable looking starfield behind the aurora image

But tonite I fired up PS and loaded a new image and the clone stamp isnt cloning. as usual using the ALT key to pick the place to clone from
then click on the places where to clone to. But what is happening is a black area is produced instead of the cloned area


Image1 original, image2 edited yesterday image3 trying to edit tonite see the black brush dot and line instead of the cloned selection ?

what the heck happened between yesterday's use of clone stamp and tonite's use of it ??

Win10 and PS subscription

thanks lots
Dave

 

[IamSam]

No images.

 

[polarwoc]

But what is happening is a black area is produced instead of the cloned area

It would be too too too premature to say without seeing a screenshot, but from the sounds of it, a possible reason is - maybe your Mask is the current selection instead of the picture?

 

[DaveN]

No images.

Yeah hit what I thought was the send button and then couldnt find my post to be able to insert the missed image examples

2 thoughts went through my mind ... 1) it didnt post, 2) it was moderated
so I just left

Anyway found the problem ... one of the dropdowns to the right of the brush tool said "multiply" thought that was odd
looked at the choices and selected "normal" and all returned to working

I must have, unknowlingly, selected that when dragging and dropping an image into PS another roll eyes haha

It had me going nutz for an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with it

What's the old saying ? .... Error lies between the brain and the keyboard

thanks for responding to you and Polarwoc

cheers
Dave