Got any ideas?

[alceria]

I have an order with a lot of staining, which thankfully is only on part of the photo. I did a job on a photo with similar staining before - it was worse actually (http://alceria.net/restoration/gallery4.html), however that order took me longer than I care to even think about.

It seems that even though I didn't tell any of my customers I would guarantee Christmas, all of them are calling the store I get my work from asking to have their stuff this week. So I'm really overwhelmed right now with work. I really do want to make an effort to get everything out before Xmess because I figure they will show their friends and family the pictures and it will bring in more work.

Anyway, I thought I would post this up here to see if anyone has any better ideas besides massive cloning/healing to repair this damage. I really had better plans than curling up with the healing brush for hours tonight.

[VidKid]

Lynn,

Those stain jobs are tough especially mold spores. If there's a large stain with enough detail underneath, I usually lasso the section, feather, darken/lighten/, increase contrast, saturate, color correct etc. to match as close to the surrounding good sections as possible. The cloning is reduced greatly while still maintaining original detail and frees up your evenings curling up to an exciting book about Java coding or Flash. (LOL)


_______
VidKid

[phili1]

I tried everything to subdue them. The only way is cloneing. I tried filter overlay, some time that masks it.NO Luck. this is a tought one. I also searched the web and came up with nothing

[jeaniesa]

Lynn, I don't have any good answers for you - which is why I didn't reply to this sooner. I looked at each of the channels and the worst damage (the mold patch across the bottom right) appears in all channels. So, I think that cloning/healing is your only choice for the worst damage. The yellow stains might be a little easier since they do seem to lessen in the red (?can't remember - looked at it a couple days ago) channel. But, because it's a color picture, that doesn't necessarily make things easier.

Jeanie

[Vikki]

This really is a tough one, and you certainly have your work cut out for you. Perhaps something like this would be faster than cloning:
Duplicated the layer, do a fast cut and paste job on the messed up areas. Then duplicate that layer, and use the healing brush to touch up and match up textures and densities. The healing brush is an excellent tool, but it does have it's pitfalls, so you still may have to do a bit of cloning, but all in all, this may be a faster method.
Wish I could have been more help. Good luck.
Vikki