Old photograph marked with Biro

TW
Posted By
Tony Wallis
Sep 3, 2004
Views
1023
Replies
4
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Closed
I’ve been given an old family photograph about 70 years old.

Its a school portrait with a sepia hue that has been defaced particularly around the mouth with blue biro.

I’ve scanned the original, and before I attempt to physically removed the ink, wondered if there was a way to work on the scanned image to improve matters.Some of it I can ‘heal’ but the mouth area has me stumped.

Any suggestions please gratefully accepted.

Tony
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RH
Randy Hills
Sep 3, 2004
I have had success using a white plastic eraser, like a Staedtler, in removing ballpoint ink from b&w photos. Gentle and light strokes has worked in the past.

good luck
Randy
JR
John Rampling
Sep 3, 2004
Scan the photo in colour then look at the blue channel. Biro marks almost gone!

..
"Tony Wallis" wrote in message
I’ve been given an old family photograph about 70 years old.
Its a school portrait with a sepia hue that has been defaced particularly around the mouth with blue biro.

I’ve scanned the original, and before I attempt to physically removed the ink, wondered if there was a way to work on the scanned image to improve matters.Some of it I can ‘heal’ but the mouth area has me stumped.
Any suggestions please gratefully accepted.

Tony
H
Hecate
Sep 4, 2004
On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 16:13:09 GMT, "Tony Wallis" wrote:

I’ve been given an old family photograph about 70 years old.
Its a school portrait with a sepia hue that has been defaced particularly around the mouth with blue biro.

I’ve scanned the original, and before I attempt to physically removed the ink, wondered if there was a way to work on the scanned image to improve matters.Some of it I can ‘heal’ but the mouth area has me stumped.
Any suggestions please gratefully accepted.

Tony
If you don’t want to buy it, check out from the library:

Photoshop Restoration and Retouching by Katrin Eismann.

Great book and that will solve your problem – she actually has a picture like that as an example tutorial.

Meantime, you can start by doing the following:

The blue biro will not show up in the blue channel. So:

Show channels, and activate the blue channel clicking on it. Then select Image/Mode/Grayscale. Photoshop will discard the other two channels and leave you with the unmarked blue channel.

—

Hecate – The Real One

veni, vidi, reliqui
M
mdocert
Sep 5, 2004
Tony, this will take alot of patience.. the Clone tool will be your friend with this one.

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