School Dayz

[klassylady25]

By klassylady25 at 2007-08-16

I've used several means of ridding the picture of the the black and in some areas it has worked well but I do not want to diminish details, especially around the face.  Any hints?

Thanks,
Candy  :-*

[Hannie]

Hi Candy!

My last project was very similar to this one, nothing but black spots!.  Checked all th channels, unfortunately I was unable to find any shortcuts in removing the black spots.  I ended up painstakingly cloning, healing, blurring the face and arms, took forever but it was worth it.  I was a little less careful with the clothes and used the patch tool as much as I could, than blurred.
I'm sorry that I can't be of more help! 

Hannie

[cmpentecost]

Hi Candice,

I tried doing the dust & scratches filter, which helped, but then I had to use a layer mask to bring the detail back in, so lost a lot of the benefit of the filter.  Unfortunately, it might be one of those time consuming tasks of doing a lot of spot removal.

Good luck!

Christine

[phischer]

On my last restoration I used a technique from Katrin Eisman's book that worked fairly decently for removing a lot of those spots. 

1.  Duplicate your background to a new layer. (Or if you've already done some color correction or found some more detail using one of the channels, make a new layer and merge visible to this layer-[shift-option-cmnd/ctrl-e])
2.  Change the new layer's blending mode to "lighten".
3.  Nudge the new layer 2 pixels down and 2 pixels to the right. (use your arrow keys with the move tool selected)
4.  Add a mask to this layer and fill it with black.
5.  Duplicate this layer and change it's blending mode to "darken".
6.  Now to remove the dark spots. Working on the "lighten" layer's mask, brush with white over all of the little black spots.  You don't want to use too big of a brush size. Set your brush size to the size of the spots you are removing.(Use your bracket keys to change the size of your brush if you need to)  You should see the smaller spots disappearing.  You will still see remnants from some of the larger spots, but they should be smaller and easier to remove later with the healing brush.
7.  Do the same thing on the darken layer to remove the white spots.

This will help to get rid of the majority of the mess. Now you can just heal away any remaining spots.  In our case, this technique is not perfect but it does bring you to a point where you can start to use the healing tools and it will not be such a daunting task.

Good luck. If I was not clear, just ask me and I will try to clarify.

Phil

[klassylady25]

I forgot about that one P... I'll do it and see how it works.  It's been a while since I worked with that one. Tanx for the reminder!

[sanbie]

Wow another good tip...we should have that  tips and tricks thread started!!

Sanbie

[glennab]

Sanbie, I've been trying to figure out a way we could have a compilation somewhere of our best tips & tricks.  Can you imagine the wealth of information on this forum, where we've all been battling with the "worst of the worst?"  If anyone has any ideas as to how to accomplish that, we'd have an incredible treasure trove.  I can see it now.  We compile our best techniques, write a book, publish it, and OPR has no more money worries!  Sounds like a plan to me!

Glenna

[klassylady25]

Oooo woudln't that be a grand book!!!
Real solutions to real headaches!   ;)

[sanbie]

OMG that sounds awesome...I love it...The best top selling e-book on the market!!

Sanbie