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Question

What is the best method to clean up a low resolution image

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
March 19, 2026
4 replies
78 views

Attached is a low resolution image of my wife and her Mom. The area on my wife’s forehead that looks like a defect is actually her bangs. What is the best method to clean this up so it actually looks like her hair and not a defect?

D Fosse

Community Expert

It does “look better” on first glance - but very obviously detail has been added that isn’t in the original. It also looks plasticky and artificial. I think this is ethically very dubious from an authenticity perspective.

It might not be a big deal here - given the low quality of the original who’s to say what is right or not. But my point is that this needs to be used with caution. What you’re getting is a new synthetic image, not an “enhanced” original.

Not to spoil the fun, but AI isn’t magic. A little realism is needed to counterbalance.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Obviously, it depends greatly on how the output will be used.

I’m coming from the vantage point that the original washed out photo is of little value to the OP. A synthetically enhanced layer set to 50% opacity & stacked on top of the original layer, might provide the OP with a starting point for making additional refinements in Photoshop.

AI is just another tool in our tool chest. Tools don’t make great artwork, people do.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

I won’t sugarcoat this. You can’t make a silk purse from sawdust. There’s only so much pixel data there to work with.

That said, I ran this through Google Gemini (Nano Banana 2) with a simple prompt: Can the colors be enhanced? And this is the result.

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

S

Shane32497352rwsqAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you Ms. O’Shea. That looks 1,000 times better

Peru Bob

Community Expert

@Shane32497352rwsq

Start here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/adjust-color-tone-levels-curves.html

E

ExUSA

Legend

This needs white and black point adjusted, color corrected, and you could manually repair her hair. I’d also crop it in half.

S

Shane32497352rwsqAuthor

Known Participant

I’m not very Photoshop savvy. Could you provide some further guidance as to how to do what you’re suggesting. Thanks in advance

E

ExUSA

Legend

Adobe has a site with tutorial content, you might want to spend some time there.

https://www.adobe.com/learn/photoshop?learnIn=1

Photoshop is a professional-level application with a lot of features, many complex. There isn’t an easy step-by-step way to do photo restoration.

Try a web search for each term I used, there are multiple ways to accomplish each thing. I’d use Curves to adjust exposure and color and probably the clone stamp, healing brush, and possibly paint brush to fix the hair. Crop tool to chop off the top of the picture.

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