Restoration of old black & white prints

BI
Posted By
Bill_Ihnow
Apr 13, 2004
Views
215
Replies
5
Status
Closed
I am new at this but having a great time working on it. I have some old black and white photos that have some cracks, scratches etc. I have tried to remove them but no luck. I went into the Filter, then Noise, then Dust & Scratches. A screen comes up that has Radius-Pixels and Threshold-levels. You can change this or cancel. At this point I am lost. Am I on the right track. Any suggestions or ideas. I tried a couple of tutorials that covered just about everything but this. Help! and thanks.

Bill Ihnow
Related Tags
black black and white old print restore white

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Pete_D
Apr 13, 2004
Bill,

I always start first with a levels adjustment. Enhance / Adjust Brightness and Contrast / Levels.

Move the left slider to the right under the highest peak there, then move the right slider to the left. Then use the middle to adjust out as much as you can before going on to more intense corrections like cloning, painting etc etc.

Pete
BH
Beth_Haney
Apr 13, 2004
Most people find using the Clone tool to be the best method for getting rid of cracks and scratches. You might also want to try using it at different levels of opacity; something less than 100% can sometimes help to get the corrections blended with the original a little better. I usually work with the Clone tool set to Unaligned.
SS
Susan_S.
Apr 14, 2004
One method of using the remove dust and scratches filter without killing detail – very useful for old photos with large backgrounds (this is in Scott Kelby’s Elements book for photographers)
Duplicate the background layer, use the Dust and scratches filter to remove the dust and scratches – threshold to zero, radius to the right as far as you need to remove the worst of the blemishes.
This is likely to destroy a lot of the detail – but this can be remedied. Click on the background layer in the layer palette and create a new empty layer which should appear between the two image layers. Group the top filtered layer with the blank layer (layers/group with previous). The filtered effect will suddenly disappear. Choose a soft brush and paint into the empty layer – the filtered scratch free version will then appear in the areas you paint over. For non-detailed background you can then paint most of the filtered copy back in with a broad brush. For detailed areas you can use a very fine brush and just paint over the scratches. Varying the opacity of the brush will vary the opacity of the a filtered layer.For large scratches in detailed areas of the image you will probably have to use the clone tool as Beth says.
JF
Jodi_Frye
Apr 14, 2004
Susan, thanks for passing that on..,,pretty cool. I did lower the opacity of the brush to make it look more natural cause otherwise it was a little too blurred. I keep saying it…this program has no limits !! Why would anyone consider using anything else ? Well, I’ll use CS if Adobe is in a gift giving mood 🙂
WE
Wendy_E_Williams
Apr 14, 2004
For a good Dust & Scrtach remover try:

< http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.htm l>

Versions for both Mac & Windows … its free and fully adjustable.

Wendy

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