removing grain from scanned negative

How can I reduce/remove grain in the background of an image using Elements? I'd rather not spend money on a plug in, so I'd really appreciate instructions/suggestions for doing this with Elements alone.
Thanks.

Try the Filter|Noise|Despeckle. It is kind of a quirky filter, but it sometimes works for me.

Often doing a duplicate layer above the background, applying a gaussian blur and then changing to Color Mode will give some smoothing as well.

Rich

Will give both of these a try. Thanks.

I had the same problem scanning with my Epson 2400 (at 2400 dpi).

the I discovered that for some reason PE 2 gets an RGB file (B&W but RGB...). I still don't know how to permanently (by default) get rid of that, but since then, I click on:

IMAGE / MODE / Grayscale

which conberts the photo to Grayscae; AND gets rid of the heavy grain...!! Try it.

Later on I go in again with all the filters and blur effects etc. But first see if you have the same RGB problem.

Oh - and if you find how to set it to GRAYSCALE as Defult, please let me know too...

ZR

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 11:19:50 -0700, "Pete Pederson" wrote:

Will give both of these a try. Thanks.