Rutger wrote:
In this picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/58491064@N00/191080542/, which is a 13% crop of an file that consists of 6 scanned and merged images there are lot of moldstains. It is a very old picture from my father in his study. I could remove these stains using the rubber stamp and/or gaussian blurring, but it is a LOT of work, since they are all over the picture. Is there a way to automate the process?
Thx,
Rutger
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/zwaarddrager/
Hi Rutger,
I hardly ever post to any of these forums, but I was in here looking for something and came across your dilemma and thought I might be able to help.
I don’t know anything about how to automate a process for what you’re trying to do, but I have used the Dust & Scratches filter with satisfactory results on some recent photos that had considerable mold stains and other surface blemishes. I downloaded your image and spent about 10-15 minutes on it just using this filter. You can see it here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92495156@N00/191318450/ It seems to work better in some places than others, so I used the Lasso tool to select and copy certain sections to their own layers. This way I could apply the filter to each section separately and adjust the parameters to get the best results. I started with the large area of wall at the top right, then moved onto the sleeve, his hand, various sections of the jacket, and then his face. About 5 or 6 layers I think. I didn’t try to fix the whole image, just enough to give you an idea of what can be done with the Dust & Scratches filter.
When you open it (under Filter>Noise), you’ll see sliders for Radius and Threshold. Start with both at 0, then slide the Radius up until the blemishes disappear. (Make sure the "Preview" box is checked.) Much or all of the texture will disappear with them, but as you slide the Threshold up, the texture will return. Just don’t go too far or the blemishes will return too. I found that having both sliders at around 10 seemed to work on most of the sections, but not all, so play around with them. Like I said, it seems to work better in some places than others, so you’ll probably still need to use the Clone tool for certain areas, but hopefully this will help. By the way I tend to use the Clone tool set alternatively to Darken and Lighten, rather than having it set to Normal.
Good luck and I hope this was helpful 🙂
JD
