Red spots on scanned photo

CA
Posted By
Carol_A._Segarra
Jul 26, 2004
Views
614
Replies
2
Status
Closed
Hi All,

I have an old photo that has a million red spots that I suspect is damaged emulsion. It would be impossible (OK maybe not impossible, but extremely time consuming) to try and clone away these specks manually, so I’m looking for a better way. The photo is in CMYK mode, because it will be printed out, and I noticed that the specks are most pronounced on the "M" channel. Is there a way that I can get rid of these spots in one or two steps?

I have Photoshop CS on a Windows 2000 OS.

Thanks a lot.
Carol
Related Tags
red scan spot

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

JH
Jake_Hannam
Jul 26, 2004
Carol,

You could try Noise – Dust & Scrattches and also a Blur – Gaussian on the M channel. Turn off the other channels first. You will have to balance between the resultant softening of the image vs the degree of spot removal. Maybe you can mask off the important part of the photo (i.e., the subject), blur just the background or even apply a texture to it, and then use cloning or healing brush on the important parts.

In addition to the cloning tool, you also have the healing brush that works well. Sometimes, tedious is the only way.

Also, if this is a really old photo, chances are it was black-and-white or sepia-toned. Sometimes, just desaturating (better than converting to grayscale) will get rid of colored spots. It’s worth a shot before any of the other techniques.
AC
Aaron_Cramer
Jul 26, 2004
or, while on your Magenta channel, sample the magenta from the surrounding areas, and just brush over the area with the spots of Magenta. that will give a better result without blurring everything in the Magenta channel.

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections