Hi
I am trying to restore an old photograph covered in cracks and speckles. I came across an excellent tutorial here: http://robertb.smugmug.com/gallery/6927932_PSYHM and many references to Tim Edwards' "Quick Decrack", which seems to run along similar lines, which is how I found myself here!
I am using Photoshop CS6 and so "Quick Decrack" will not work with this version. I was hoping someone could review the steps below (or you can follow the full tutorial at the link above) and tell me what I am doing wrong in the end!
Hopefully this will be useful to someone else in the future:
STEP 1
Duplicate background and then apply to this layer FILTER/OTHER/MINIMUM
Now apply FILTER/OTHER/MAXIMUM
Now rightclick over layer and change blending options from "normal" to "difference"
Press Alt-Ctrl-Shift-E to create a merged copy of this layer
STEP 2
Make another duplicate background layer (i.e.. another copy of the original image)
Now apply FILTER/BLUR/GAUSSIAN and blur until no speckles etc are visible
STEP 3
OK so far so good we now have 4 layers, namely:
Background (your original image)
Duplicate Background 1 (we applied the min and max filters to)
Merged layer (created when we pressed Alt-Ctrl-Shift-E)
Duplicate Background 2 (the blurred one!)
So now we select the merged layer to make active and press Ctrl+a (to select all) and Ctrl+c (to copy all to the clipboard)
Now we select Duplicate Background 2 and add a layer mask. Once added hold alt and click the layer mask icon in the layers palette (the image will appear as plain white) now press Ctrl-V to paste the merged layer into the layer mask.
STEP 4
OK so now I have a layer mask containing every speck and scratch I want to remove (really is amazing!!!) and a blurred image containing the colours I want to use to replace all those specks and scratches with. BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Please can someone assist and tell me how to apply the mask so that the lighter areas are replaced with pixels from the blurred image.
Thanks very much, if someone has ever created a step by step guide to applying Tim Edwards method manually then please direct me to this to, as I would like to give his method a go also. Finally, to remove darker specks and scratches from an image, you reverse the application of the min and max filters in step one above.
I am trying to restore an old photograph covered in cracks and speckles. I came across an excellent tutorial here: http://robertb.smugmug.com/gallery/6927932_PSYHM and many references to Tim Edwards' "Quick Decrack", which seems to run along similar lines, which is how I found myself here!
I am using Photoshop CS6 and so "Quick Decrack" will not work with this version. I was hoping someone could review the steps below (or you can follow the full tutorial at the link above) and tell me what I am doing wrong in the end!
Hopefully this will be useful to someone else in the future:
STEP 1
Duplicate background and then apply to this layer FILTER/OTHER/MINIMUM
Now apply FILTER/OTHER/MAXIMUM
Now rightclick over layer and change blending options from "normal" to "difference"
Press Alt-Ctrl-Shift-E to create a merged copy of this layer
STEP 2
Make another duplicate background layer (i.e.. another copy of the original image)
Now apply FILTER/BLUR/GAUSSIAN and blur until no speckles etc are visible
STEP 3
OK so far so good we now have 4 layers, namely:
Background (your original image)
Duplicate Background 1 (we applied the min and max filters to)
Merged layer (created when we pressed Alt-Ctrl-Shift-E)
Duplicate Background 2 (the blurred one!)
So now we select the merged layer to make active and press Ctrl+a (to select all) and Ctrl+c (to copy all to the clipboard)
Now we select Duplicate Background 2 and add a layer mask. Once added hold alt and click the layer mask icon in the layers palette (the image will appear as plain white) now press Ctrl-V to paste the merged layer into the layer mask.
STEP 4
OK so now I have a layer mask containing every speck and scratch I want to remove (really is amazing!!!) and a blurred image containing the colours I want to use to replace all those specks and scratches with. BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT?
Please can someone assist and tell me how to apply the mask so that the lighter areas are replaced with pixels from the blurred image.
Thanks very much, if someone has ever created a step by step guide to applying Tim Edwards method manually then please direct me to this to, as I would like to give his method a go also. Finally, to remove darker specks and scratches from an image, you reverse the application of the min and max filters in step one above.

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