Stain Removal

[NuffRespeck]

Greetings!! I've been a member for some time and have learned quite a lot from the 'family'. I am, however, stymied at the procedures described in prior posts on how to remove stains from images. There are obvious stains on the photo especially over the woman's face. (Please see attached). I would surely appreciate any guidance on how I may proceed in removing same. Thanks!

[Boneappetit]

Hi NR: If you are using Photoshop, you can easily get rid of those with the healing, or patch tools... You can also use the clone stamp tool, but the healing tool imo, works just fine in this case...

[Siciliana]

If it were me, for the face, I'd want to keep the tonal information that is colored yellow. I would correct the color and luminosity of the stained area on the face with an curves adjustment layer(masked into the stain area only), and after that clone only what I need to to make all the transitions natural, maybe a little dodge&burn if needed. If I can't get the skin color quite right with my curves adjustments, I'd sample from a good area of skin and paint over the stained area on a 'color' blend mode layer.

You can experiment, some stains are easier to 'correct' and some are easier to just clone out. It depends on what part of the image is under the stain.

[chillin]

First I would do levels adjustments, next HSL & curves adjustments to get rid of the stains.

[NuffRespeck]

Thank you all for your suggestions and quick responses. I'll give each a try and update you on what I am able to achieve. Thanks again!

[mistermonday]

Another approach to try might be somewhat quicker.
- Add a levels adj layer and compress the histograms of all 3 channels to restore some contrast to the image.
- The Green channel is moderately clean. So on a duplicate of the merged image, do Image>Apply Image and apply the Gren channel in normal blend mode. Change the layer's blend mode to Luminosity.
- You can now add a blank layer set to color blend mode and paint good color over the stained areas.
- Where you have a really bad defect you can clone it out
- Where you have areas where the luminosity does not match, you could dodge / burn. Attached sample done up to the color layer but no D&B done.
Good luck with the restoration.
Regards, Murray

[GDML77]

Originally Posted by NuffRespeck

Greetings!! I've been a member for some time and have learned quite a lot from the 'family'. I am, however, stymied at the procedures described in prior posts on how to remove stains from images. There are obvious stains on the photo especially over the woman's face. (Please see attached). I would surely appreciate any guidance on how I may proceed in removing same. Thanks!

This is what I would do (a very simplified version to be easy to understand):

1) On top of the base layer create a new blank (empty) layer.

2) Pick up the info of the color from a good zone, with the eye dropper.

3) Paint over the "stain"

4) Experiment multiple blending models. Adjust opacity.

5) Dodge and burn a bit to get the "shape" back...


Cheers

GDML77

[Cupcake]

I healed, cloned,
painted in painter 12