[doosume]

Hi everyone - I had this picture sent to me and I was hoping someone could give me some tips on how to clean this up? It was scanned at 300 dpi but there are some funky green and red mesh lines in it?

How does someone go about doing this? Or is it even possible? Thanks!



P.S. I have tried adjusting hue/sat, sharpening, adjusting levels... I may not be doing it right though...

[Doug Nelson]

That's moire (interference pattern caused by scanning textured or halftone or fine detail). Are you scanning at your maximum possible optical rez?

[doosume]

I'm not scanning it this lady is so... I know she is scanning at 300 dpi but that is about all I know. We are trying to figure this out together!

[Flora]

Hi doosume,

I do hope you manage to figure out the problem with this image, in the meantime I had a go at it with Photoshop.

If you can't get a better scan and think the Lady could be satisfied with the result I got, just let me know and I'll post a step-by-step description of how I got there.

[jeaniesa]

This looks like moire patters that I used to get on my HP 6200 scanner when I tried to lighten a dark picture in the scanning process. Probably not what you want to here, but the only answer I found was to buy a new scanner! Barring that, you may ask her to scan again and darken the image a bit. I don't know if that will really help - or just mask the problem, i.e. when you lighten in Photoshop, it's entirely possible the lines are still there.

While Flora's results look great, I would stress to the client that your restoration is dependent on the scan you start out with - and that starting with a scan the way it is will take you longer to fix, thus more expensive. Perhaps she could bring it to a local lab and have it scanned professionally?

Jeanie

[Xaran]

Flora, you have achieved the impossible, a description of the steps taken could well be useful to others and I am sure would be appreciated.

A word of caution though - this looks like it could be from a magazine and there could be copyright issues.

Christine

[doosume]

oh no, I just cropped the picture this way because it is of her daughter and I didn't want to put her whole pic online!

Flora how in the world did you do this? That is amazing! I think she would be happy if I could do something even remotely close to that...Please!

[roger_ele]

Here is my try, not as pretty as Flora's but a different way of approaching it.

-Duplicated background, blurred and changed layer to color mode
-selected highlights (control-alt-tilde), Control-shift-i to invert selection, control-j to create new layer from selection, changed created layer to multiply mode
-Curves adjustment layer to tweak
-created new empty layer, then control-alt-shift-E to merge visible into new layer, ran dust and scratches on new layer and removed some with mask around eye and edge of ear.

Roger

[Flora]

Hi,

thanks for your feedback!

doosume,

Here is what I did with your picture:

• Duplicated the Background.

• Used the Curves (here) to balance the tones a bit.

• Created a 'Shadow Mask' *:
  
  * Press Ctrl+Alt+~ to create a Luminosity Mask, feather your selection by pressing Ctrl+Alt+D, enter the desired value (I usually go for 2-4 Pixels Radius), press Ctrl+I to invert the mask and, finally, press Ctrl+J to copy your selection on its own Layer.

• Working on the newly created 'Shadow Mask' run Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur (radius 1.5 - 1.8 pixels). Blurring only the dark parts of the picture (that's what the Mask is) helps minimizing the streaking which is more evident there, without blurring too much the light parts of the picture.

• Created a new empty Layer (Blending=Color) and, using a soft Brush (Opacity 30-60%), keeping the Alt key pressed, sampled 'good' colour close to the streaks ... released the Alt key and carefully painted over the streaks.

• Created a new empty Layer (Blending=Overlay) and, with a soft Brush (Opacity 10%) I painted white over the parts I wanted to highlight (cheek, white parts of the eye etc.) and painted black over the parts I wanted to enhance (eyebrow, eyelashes etc.)

• Sharpened the image using USM.

Hope this helps.

Roger,

great result .... actually, we followed more or less the same steps ....

[doosume]

You are so good and I'm greatful for the advice. Once again thanks!