Removing Stains

[curtism]

Attached is an almost 70-year old photo of my mother-in-law with uneven staining along with my best attempt at removing said stains. Isn't there a way to remove more of the stains before beginning to clone away the remaining discoloration?

All suggestions welcome!


Curtis

[philbach]

Well take a look at the red channel. That is the least affected. So you may want to convert to black and white and use the red channel for your conversion.

[curtism]

Well take a look at the red channel. That is the least affected. So you may want to convert to black and white and use the red channel for your conversion.

Phil,

That's what I did using CS3's Black & White adjustment. I just hoped that there was something that I omitted that might clean the photo more.


Curtis

[lurch]

Curtis,
It's possible to fix the stains in this image without resorting to cloning at all. Just use a B/W adjustment layer with red lightened, as you've already done. Then merge visible to a new layer (or merge the adjustment layer down - I don't, 'cause that doesn't leave me an easy way to reverse myself if I've screwed up). Add a layer mask and unlink it (click the little chain icon between the image thumbnail and the mask thumbnail), then in the mask paint over the unstained parts with a soft black brush. Surface blur will smear out the last traces of stain, while the mask will leave the features untouched.

[curtism]

It's possible to fix the stains in this image without resorting to cloning at all. Just use a B/W adjustment layer with red lightened, as you've already done. Then merge visible to a new layer (or merge the adjustment layer down - I don't, 'cause that doesn't leave me an easy way to reverse myself if I've screwed up). Add a layer mask and unlink it (click the little chain icon between the image thumbnail and the mask thumbnail), then in the mask paint over the unstained parts with a soft black brush. Surface blur will smear out the last traces of stain, while the mask will leave the features untouched.

That sounds like something I should try! Thanks so much, Lurch. I will report back with the results.

Curtis

[petrikNZ]

Sorry, I don't mean to pirate the post but as it relates to the topic can someone tell me a way of using channel information for dealing with stains and marks like this using GIMP.

GIMP has channels so I suspect it is possible but they don't seem to work in quite the same way as other programs when I try translating those tutorials for use in GIMP. Most other techniques I can replicate in some form but channels eludes me right now.

[TommyO]

petrikNZ,
Here is a short and quick synopsis....
I cannot speak directly on GIMP, but channel information should behave similarly to Photoshop (PS). In restoration work, we generally use channels as a means to examine the image for possible shortcuts in the restoration process. For black & white images, if one channel contains lots of bad data, we can discard it. If one channel contains mostly good data and no bad, we can use it and discard one or more of the others. Sometimes we mix them in a way to use most of the best channel and a small percentage of one of the others.

We can also build missing data in one channel from one or more channels. For instance, if a damaged color image is lacking data in the red channel, we can take data from the blue channel and insert into the red, thus balancing the color information so that a restoration is easier.

The techniques for all the above can vary, but share the basic premise. So, it could be useful to read more about how GIMP represents data in their channel palettes and then apply techniques in various posts after that.

[Kraellin]

i had a go at this one also. to start, airbrushed the background smoother and cleaner. then i did a clone/airbrush treatment on her face and followed up that with the same on her clothing.

but, after that i cropped the image. there just wasnt enough on the lower portion of the image worth saving, so i simply cut it off. even more could be done if desired.

also, i didnt do this, but it might be smart to increase the size of this image by double or even more.

and, for alternative methods, you might consider a hue/sat treatment of individual colors and see if they couldnt be blended out by changing those colors.

[curtism]

Great job, Craig. I'm not very good with the airbrush yet so I haven't given that a try. I did try Hue/Sat but had better results with the Black/White tool. More than anything else I just need to practice on images such as this.

Thanks for the help and encouragement.


Curtis

[Kraellin]

thanks, curtis

looking forward to seeing what you get as a finished product.

[Fridaydreamer]

Originally Posted by TommyO

petrikNZ,
We can also build missing data in one channel from one or more channels. For instance, if a damaged color image is lacking data in the red channel, we can take data from the blue channel and insert into the red, thus balancing the color information so that a restoration is easier.

Can someone give detailed step-by-step instructions on how to do this?

Thanks,

Shaunie

[sergio2263]

Originally Posted by lurch

Curtis,
It's possible to fix the stains in this image without resorting to cloning at all. Just use a B/W adjustment layer with red lightened, as you've already done. Then merge visible to a new layer (or merge the adjustment layer down - I don't, 'cause that doesn't leave me an easy way to reverse myself if I've screwed up). Add a layer mask and unlink it (click the little chain icon between the image thumbnail and the mask thumbnail), then in the mask paint over the unstained parts with a soft black brush. Surface blur will smear out the last traces of stain, while the mask will leave the features untouched.

Hi Lurch,

Nice restoration work. Would you mind telling me how you got the black and white layer from the background layer.

Many thanks


helen