Participating Frequently

Answered

Best way to remove artifacts from old photo

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 3, 2022
2 replies
2119 views

I found an old photo, but it's in a quite bad state... I would like to hear your thoughts on what is the best approach of removing the unwanted artifacts. The only way I know is healing, but this seems to be a big area to apply healing.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Michael Bullo

Whenever I'm needing to clean up black and white images I like to review the channels. The Red channel in your image looks remarkably clean. You could easily copy the pixels from the Red channel and paste them as a regular layer. You may still want to do a little retouching.

To make this look like your original you could add a little contrast and a subtle sepia colour.

I've offered here a general strategy. If you have any questions about how to achieve specific steps please don't hesitate to ask.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

You might find this of interest.

https://petapixel.com/2022/07/28/gfpgan-is-a-new-free-ai-tool-that-can-fix-most-old-photos-instantly/

M

mspyratosAuthor

Participating Frequently

I will definitely do! Thank you!

Michael Bullo

Correct answer

Community Expert

Whenever I'm needing to clean up black and white images I like to review the channels. The Red channel in your image looks remarkably clean. You could easily copy the pixels from the Red channel and paste them as a regular layer. You may still want to do a little retouching.

To make this look like your original you could add a little contrast and a subtle sepia colour.

I've offered here a general strategy. If you have any questions about how to achieve specific steps please don't hesitate to ask.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Yes, "red channel" immediately popped up in my head when I saw this 🙂

Note that if you copy the red cannel to paste back into an original RGB file, you should change your working gray to "Gray Gamma 2.2" first. The reason is that a single channel is treated as a grayscale file in your working gray. The default "Dot gain"-profile will give a very incorrect tone curve and washed out image. Gamma 2.2 should match much better for an sRGB or Adobe RGB file - but use gamma 1.8 if the file is ProPhoto.

Michael Bullo

Community Expert

@D Fosse Great call on factoring in the gamma.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded