Thin Scratches In Grainy Image

[Smudger7]

Good morning, can anyone help me please? I am restoring a black and white print dating back to the early 1960's which has a fairly grainy sky. There are some scratches in the sky which look as if they may have been made when the negative was squeegeed after washing. I have attached a 100% enlargement of two of the scratches (top & bottom in the attachment), which I hope shows what I mean sufficiently clearly.

I have tried lots of ways to get rid of the scratches, spot healing brush, pixel nudging, patch tool, dust & scratches/history brush etc but nothing has worked to the extent that the repairs are not/will not be visible in the final print (to be 7x5" / 13x18cm in size).

Does anyone have any suggestions please as to what else I can try to remove both the scratches and any evidence they were there please? Many thanks, Smudger 7

[Wolly55]

Re: Thin Scratches In Grainy Image

Hi Smudger7.

You could try copying the colour closest to each scratch and using a brush size slightly bigger than the scratch you are going to cover,add a new layer, just paint that colour over it, then apply some noise to the painted layer and get it to blend with the existing noise thats in the image.

[skoobey]

Re: Thin Scratches In Grainy Image

Frequency separation, and clone with 100% hard round brush on the top layer.

[Smudger7]

Re: Thin Scratches In Grainy Image

Many thanks to you both; I will give both of them a try.