Hi everyone. I have yet other order where the customer is having fits because they want the pictures by Xmess although I never made any promises. Grrr.

Anyway the main issue with this one is the extreme amount of cracking. I tried that Decrack Action that is on this site and that didn't help (maybe the me settings were wrong?). I also tried Alien Skin's Scratch Remover and Jpeg repair but both nixed too much detail. Also tried the old dust & scratches filter in PS but didn't like that either.

Any suggestions on something else to try or settings for the filters above that may work better. I've only had Alien Skin for a few weeks so I'm not really up to speed on what will work best with what.

Thanks!

You could try the Polaroid Dust and Scratches filter (http://www.polaroid.com/products/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=390847&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=12631&PRDREG=US&SOURCE=catalog), since you can get better results from it than the one in Photoshop. Wow, thats a tough job you've got! besides the D&S filter I think you're mostly gonna be stuck with a large amount of Cloning/Healing unfortunately.

- David :)

Hi, this is a quickie and by no means good, but perhaps you can get a start. If David's filter doesn't help much, you can try the patch tool. Start with small areas then you can patch larger ones with less replication. Then on a dupe layer set to a low opacity, you can use the dodge and burn tools to adjust the rough tone areas left by the patching. Play with the different adjustments and brush sizes until you get what you like.
I'm sure others will show up with different/better tips, but maybe this will help you get going.
Debbie

Lynn, Tim's Decrack action helped when I used it (image below) although there would still be clean-up work left to do. His action was created for PS6 and he ran WinME at the time (per his thread regarding the action). He also made one for PS5.5

Are you using PShop? If so, which version?

Hope you are able to get everything done without over-stressing; it will be great when it's all done and everyone is saying wonderful things about you and your work... :)

There's an excellent tutorial written by one of our members for reducing that fine cracking. I've used it and it's exellent. You can find it here.
http://www.retouchpro.com/tutorials/decrack/index.html

He also has an action you can download in zip form that makes it alot easier. You can find that in the first line of his tutorial.
DJ

CJ - I'm using 7.0. Would you mind sharing the settings you used for the High Pass filter? And if there's any other part that allows you to customize the filter what did you use for those?

DJ - Thanks, I'll check.


You guys are all wonderful!

I haven't run any tests on your picture, but the first thing I would try is two layers. On the bottom, run Polaroid Dust and Scratch filter at a level that is best for scratch removal, regardless of what it does to the areas that are not cracked. On the top layer, set your eraser to the width of the crack you are about to attack and carefully erase it, allowing the descratched image underneath to show through. This allows you to use higher levels of scratch removal without touching areas that are not scratched.

BTW, your picture looks like it might take more than one pass. By this I mean: The first pass is for small scratches, so you don't have to nuke the underlayer much. Then flatten. Then a new underlayer with somewhat higher scratch removal. Then carefully erase and watch what happens. If the underlayer doesn't show through right, hit undo and go to the next scratch. When done, flatten. By the third pass you will have the worst ones left, but also fewer to work on. You can attack these with erasing or healing or cloning, whichever works best. Or maybe another method I have not thought of. But there will be fewer to deal with.

And again, I have not tested your picture. But you will know pretty quickly if this method is working.

What is this Polaroid filter and where can I get it?

I put up a link in my post here (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=39695#post39630). if that doesn't work, just search on google for "Polaroid Dust and Scratches"

- David :)

Lynn -- for the sample I posted, I just used his default settings. When I use his action, I try it at default setting first, and if I see some improvement, then I make some changes to see if I can improve it. Often as not, his defaults do well.

If his action doesn't run on PShop 7, he did list his steps in a thread:
Text for Tim's Decracking action (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1223)

Scroll down to Tim Edward's post (I still have problems making a link to a specific post :( )

I just redid my Mom and Dads wedding photo and it had thousnads of hair line cracks. I tried decrack and it did not work, so I tried smart blur at varying levels and got rid of all the small ones. I used the clone tool, to clone and clone paint and the healing tool. I then did an unsharp mask to it limit. I just tried it on your photo and it works. Might help. Good luck