I would like to know which is better in removing dust, lint, and scratches from a photo between median or dust and scratches removal in photoshop Cs2. The reason I'm asking is because I had used median to remove some dust, lint, and scratches from a photo and they all came off great, but the texture of the jacket was gone. I would like to know was the median too strong or I'm using the wrong one. In what instance should someone use the median on a photo.

Gerald McClaren

The masters here always will ask you for a sample of what you are doing to help you.

Don't forget the salt/pepper filter which is specifically designed for dot-shaped particle removal, whereas the dust/scratch remover is better suited for removing elongated particles.

If you are dealing with a highly textured photo and the texture is similar in nature to the foreign particles, then you'll probably have to resort to somewhat more manual tools. That would be either the healing brush (Photoshop) or the scratch remover and makeover tools (Paintshop Pro).

Bart

like you may have already gathered, there is no one single tool that works best in all situations. so saying whether median is better or d&s is better isnt really the right answer. they both have their uses. and like bart mentioned, the salt and pepper filter has saved me many times. Paint Shop Pro also has 'edge preserviing' and 'texture preserving' which do similar things, not to mention their excellent 'digital camera noise removal' filter.

and that's just Paint Shop Pro. there are also the plugins/stand-alones like Neat Image and Polaroid Dust and & Scratch removal. and again, that's just a couple of them. there are other plugins for removing noise and smooth. someone's bound to mention Noise Ninja. i've never used that one, but some seem to swear by it. and again, that doesnt even cover the whole list.

and, there are other plugins and built-ins that can remove noise even though they werent designed for it specifically. i was recently going through some of Stroker's plugins and found some noise removal capabilties in a couple. i think ChOps was one of them and Colour 2 Colour might have been another. i've also found that the Aim 7 band sharpen can be used to reduce noise in some cases.

i also find your original question a bit rhetorical, since you could simply try both of those you mention and compare the results, but then, maybe not too :)

the whole question of 'noise' is a bit undefined as well. i think of noise as that spotty, grainy kind of extra unwanted pixels that are scattered all about a given image, but others may have broader or narrower definitions. you could even define 'noise' as anything unwanted in an image, though generally i think it's not.

so, like studioj said, post an image.

craig

i am working on a scanned image, showing people in india and a market place. its not very very sharp, and you see grain. so i found out using "remove dust & scratch" filter is best here with Radius 4 and 28 thresh.
but i had to find it out first, so i played around with radiuses and threshold until nothing is removed from the pic except the tiny 1000s of dust points.

and its fast..

I would like to know which is better in removing dust, lint, and scratches from a photo between median or dust and scratches removal in photoshop Cs2. The reason I'm asking is because I had used median to remove some dust, lint, and scratches from a photo and they all came off great, but the texture of the jacket was gone. I would like to know was the median too strong or I'm using the wrong one. In what instance should someone use the median on a photo.

Gerald McClaren

In all things Photoshop, the answer to a question like that is alwasy going to be "It depends..." Any time you want maximum results, you have to tailor your approach to the needs of the image. One-size-fits-all approaches, whether with actions or filters, will often yield useful results, but, as you discovered, with some serious drawbacks.

I usually dupe my image and run Dust and Scratches on that layer making sure that everything gets blasted. Then I hide it with a mask. Large areas of shadow or highlight, where detail is minimal, get a big brush with broad strokes to reveal the clean layer. Detailed areas like skin, cloth patterns, trees or other objects, get a small brush and meticulous attention to the area revealed to make sure that I only cover the minimal pixels necessary.

Also try Polaroid Dust and Scratch removal filter, good for light and dark dust removal.

http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html