Did I use too much blur to get rid of noise?

[battleaxe]

Did I use too much blur to get rid of the noise?




Whoops just noticed that I merged all and saved.  The middle pic where it was finished but not blurred is gone.   Shoot!!.  Also I see some spots on the right side to fix.

Oh well.  Is this okay otherwise? Also this is half the size of original, this is an 11x 14 pic.

[Bambi]

I hate when that happens! So your file is just the flattened final with no other layers? Ouch. Lots of good work so far.

You have lost a lot of detail in the suit and dress with the blur. I have often used a copy of the Blue Channel (before the blurring) on a New Layer set to Luminosity to bring back the detail. If you use the Blue Channel of the finished image, you won't get more detail. You have to use an earlier version—and earlier versions might have spots that will show up in the Luminosity layer.

On the Sommers pictures, I've been starting with a Dust and Scratches correction set at 1-2 pixels—so only the very smallest spots blur out. Then I use the Content Aware Spot Healing Brush, Healing Brush, Clone Stamp tools with tiny brushes. You can use the Blur Tool in Bush mode set to Normal with an opacity of 33% (also very small brush) to blend the tones gently after you've spotted an area.

These pictures have soooooooooo many spots of various sizes that any broad strokes to blur them takes away too much detail.

I'm sure other members have their own techniques for working with pictures like these and I hope they will share them so you'll have more choices. I think we can expect more damage like this from Joplin, so this is great practice.

Bambi

[battleaxe]

Thanks Bambi  :hug:

I have started over again.  I'll try what you suggest. 

Again thanks

[Bambi]

I always hate the idea of starting over, but each time I've done a much better job and was far more satisfied with the finished restore. And the work goes so much faster! On a smaller photo, it might not matter as much. But at 11x14, we need as much detail as we can bring back. Hope you're still having fun.

Bambi

[TerryB]

Whoops just noticed that I merged all and saved.  The middle pic where it was finished but not blurred is gone.   Shoot!!.  Also I see some spots on the right side to fix.

Battleaxe, this may save you some grief in the future:

In order to avoid losing previous selections, color corrections, filter applications and other work, and/or when dealing with too many layers I've found that stamping the work (Ctl+Alt+Shift+E) eliminates a lot of layer selection guesswork and selection loading guesswork.

The resulting new layer is essentially a flattened accumulation of all work to date, but with all work to date still accessible in the underlying layers.

You can then stuff all of the preceding work into a New Group (folder icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel) so the Layers Panel doesn't get unwieldy.

Hope this helps.

[Bambi]

Great tip, Terry. I learned to use Stamp Visible several years ago at Photoshop World and have used it ever since.

Bambi

[Judy]

Terry,

Thanks for that tip.  I looked at the menus and didn't see that it was there, so no wonder I hadn't tried it.  It takes care of a problem I seem to have often and I can hardly wait to try it.  I emailed myself the post to be put in my Photoshop folder!

On the subject of denoising I really always am dissatisfied when I try any approach trying to get a lot of dust and spots at once. 

Judy

[battleaxe]

Terry,
  I normally do Shift/Ctrl/Alt E.  I guess I did merge down instead.  I had gotten rid of the other layers before doing the blurring.  Didn't notice that I merged the middle, for I got distracted by other things. Before leaving my computer I hit save.  I just have to remember to do what I normally did, and not get rid of any layer till it is uploaded.

Thanks though for the advice :hug:

[TerryB]

Terry,
  I normally do Shift/Ctrl/Alt E.  I guess I did merge down instead.  I had gotten rid of the other layers before doing the blurring.  Didn't notice that I merged the middle, for I got distracted by other things. Before leaving my computer I hit save.  I just have to remember to do what I normally did, and not get rid of any layer till it is uploaded.

Thanks though for the advice :hug:

Battleaxe:

One very important thing I neglected to mention is that before you Stamp the layers with CTL+ALT+SHIFT+E is that you must first select the layers you want to Stamp.
Sorry 'bout that.

[Mhayes]

Terry,

Thanks for posting this as I use it all the time with the short cut keys--although at first I felt like I needed some extra fingers. On CS 5 I know that you can also use the pull down menu in Layers. As long as you are on the top layer and all of your layers are visible it will merge all of them together.

Margie

[Hannie]

I find it easy to hold down the Alt button and pick Merge Visible from the Layer dropdown menu.

Hannie

[TerryB]

I find it easy to hold down the Alt button and pick Merge Visible from the Layer dropdown menu.

Hannie

Cool!
And quicker.

Thanks, Hannie

[battleaxe]

Here is my latest restore attempt on this one

Please let me know what's left to do to it.

[lurch]

Seems like a nice job overall. However, there are several light blobs on the man's dark suit that need evening out. The darks, particularly that suit, are much more blocked up than the original, too.

[glennab]

http://www.tipsquirrel.com/index.php/2011/09/image-clean-up-with-photoshops-dust-and-scratches-filter/

Here's a tutorial I got from one of my pals on Facebook that may or may not apply here, but it's worth keeping in our bag of tricks.  I hadn't thought of using different values in different areas of the photo to keep from using global adjustments that might not work on the whole image.

GK