Clumps detected by our analysis pipeline (coloured circles) in SINGS galaxy NGC 2976 at its original distance (first panel), with the galaxy artificially moved to twice (second panel), then thrice (third panel), and, finally, four times the distance (last panel; see text for details). We can see that while the clumps are always placed in the same general regions of the galaxy, the number of clumps decreases strongly with the distance.