Removing scanner stripes

[supvato]

Hello, everyone.

I scanned a few old pics and noticed that all of the images have a vertical line with bright pixels. I think this is a problem with the scanner (maybe some reflection in the scanning bed). In any case, all the solutions I've tried to minimize this have failed, so I was wondering if I could just remove this bright stripe using Photoshop.

I have attached a small crop out of one of the images where a vertical bright band of pixels can be seen in the center. I am trying to get rid of this using Photoshop. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Tony W]

Re: Removing scanner stripes

The healing brush or the patch tool should help, but IMO you should really be addressing the scanner problem as you are just making work for yourself

[shumicpi]

Re: Removing scanner stripes

Yes you can remove these stripe lines in Photoshop. You just need to select those portion with a selection tool and then need to adjust that portion with the remaining portion.

[JoReam]

Re: Removing scanner stripes

I presume you have already tried cleaning the scanning head - assuming that the lines are showing up in the same position on each scan? It only takes a minute bit of dust to cause problems.

[mikemorrell]

Re: Removing scanner stripes

Getting the scanner fixed and re-scanning is by far the best solution.

One approach in Photoshop is to make 2 - 4 different scans of the photo with a different orientation on the scanner. Crop and rotate them to the same orientation. Load them in as separate layers (File/Place embedded). Then you have 4 identical layers with the 'damage' in different parts of each layer. Align the layers (google how to do this) and hopefully you'll be able to remove the damaged part of each layer to make the undamaged version of an underlying layer visible.

Another approach is reducing the patterns/stripes using filters.
A free plug-in called 'Fast Fourier Analysis' (FFT) is often recommended for reducing regular patterns in photos, for example caused by scanner reflections of photo texture. This is complicated and time-consuming too. I've not had much luck with stripes though.

I recently tried Dfine2 which is part of the free Nik plugin collection. It's intended to reduce noise in photos but it did a pretty good job on stripes too. It also reduced the fine details too so I added these back in with the history brush.