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bruceo62291541
Known Participant
October 8, 2023
Answered

how to clean thousands of blemishes from a photo, other than one a time

  • October 8, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 4191 views

I have about 50 slides mounted in glass with thousands of blemishes.  I

 

have spent as long as 3 days removing blemishes from one photo.  This involved cleaning up as much as I could until the fix markers got so crowded I couldn't continue, exporting the photo, importing the photo, and cleaning up more blemishes, repeating this cycle several times a day. 

 

I have also cleaned up an area one blemish at a time, widened the spot removal brush and with the cleaned area as the source, used clone or heal to remove blemishes in other parts of the photo.  This works best in areas with little detail, like a clear sky. 

 

Is there a faster way in either PhotoShop or Lightroom, other than one blemish at a time, to clean up a photo?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Per Berntsen

    I imported your image in LrC, and first did some basic adjustments, to make it easier to work with the image.

    I expanded the tonal range by setting Blacks to -23 and Whites to 75.

    I then set Exposure to 0.40 to make it a bit brighter.

    Then I went to Masking and chose Select sky, and set Clarity and Texture to -100.

    This removed the majority of the black spots in the sky, and the rest were removed with the Healing brush.

    All this took less than five minutes.

     

    There's still some smaller spots left, and I would use the Spot Healing brush tool in Photoshop to remove these, and the most prominent spots in the landscape.

     

     

    5 replies

    J
    JimHess
    Inspiring
    October 11, 2023

    I tried using the neural filters->photo restoration option in Photoshop followed by a few spot healing applications. But it seemed to have lost some of the detail in the mountains. It reduced the amount of work but I don't think the results are that great. The feature has worked great on some old portraits for me.

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 10, 2023
    quote

    I have spent as long as 3 days removing blemishes from one photo.  This involved cleaning up as much as I could until the fix markers got so crowded I couldn't continue, exporting the photo, importing the photo, and cleaning up more blemishes, repeating this cycle several times a day. 


    By @bruceo62291541

     

    No need to do that. Just turn off the tool overlay in the lower left corner below the image. Set it to 'Never', and the icons will not show on the image.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    Per Berntsen
    Community Expert
    Per BerntsenCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    October 9, 2023

    I imported your image in LrC, and first did some basic adjustments, to make it easier to work with the image.

    I expanded the tonal range by setting Blacks to -23 and Whites to 75.

    I then set Exposure to 0.40 to make it a bit brighter.

    Then I went to Masking and chose Select sky, and set Clarity and Texture to -100.

    This removed the majority of the black spots in the sky, and the rest were removed with the Healing brush.

    All this took less than five minutes.

     

    There's still some smaller spots left, and I would use the Spot Healing brush tool in Photoshop to remove these, and the most prominent spots in the landscape.

     

     

      Per Berntsen
      Community Expert
      Per BerntsenCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 9, 2023

      Here's the image before I selected the sky:

       

      DClark064
      DClark064
      Inspiring
      October 8, 2023

      You may want to give the "Photo Restoration" neural filter in Photoshop a try.

      Filter > Neural Filters..., then select Photo Restoration from the list in the right panel.

      You can adjust "Scratch reduction".

      It's in beta test but works well.  I find the results are not perfect but it's a pretty good start.

       

      As the name implies this is a neural net AI application which is optimized for NVidia GPU's.  I think the filter still works if you don't have a GPU, but it will probably be very slow. 

        B
        bruceo62291541Author
        Known Participant
        October 9, 2023

        Thanks. 

        I'll try it.  No Invidia hardware is in the computer. The operating system is Windows 11.

         

        John Waller
        Community Expert
        John WallerCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 8, 2023

        Can you post a typical example here using the Insert Photos button in the forum toolbar?

        B
        bruceo62291541Author
        Known Participant
        October 9, 2023

        Here is an example.

        B
        bruceo62291541Author
        Known Participant
        October 9, 2023

        Here are before (test2.jpg) and after (test2after.jpg) examples.

         

        In short, Photo Restoration removed the fine blemishes, left the large ones untouched, and removed the detail in the photo.  The goal; remove the crud and keep the detail, will be a hard nut to crack

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