How to smooth out blotchy areas that used to be grainy

[kirbydoo]

Hi all,

Please see the below image.

As you can see, there is a kind of blotchiness that is the result of me using the smooth tool in the old Photoshop Fix app. The original image was very grainy and I wanted to give it a cleaner look. Does anyone know if there is a specific way to smooth it out even further? Should I just stick with the spot healing tool? I find that when I use the spot healing tool, I am just creating new blotches in different places. The blur tool isn't much more effective as I don't see much change when I use it.

I understand this is kind of an obsure question but I am stuck in out to fix that backdrop color.

Thanks for any ideas.

[barbara_a]

In the Camera Raw filter, in Basic properties, you could try removing Contrast and Texture. After that you may need to increase Vibrance,

[Bojan Živković]

Not sure what is your end goal in first place. Have you also ever tried using Gaussian Blur to smooth blotchiness?

[kirbydoo]

Here is a screenshot of the full document.

I would like for the blue background to be smooth without any of the apparent blotches of lighter and darker blue. I do think using the gaussian blur would be a smart idea but I'm not sure how to get the entire hand and text to remain the same while the background changes. I've tried to use the magnetic lasso to cut out the hand and text but that has proven to be quite a pain in the rear as I am constantly having to start over after veering my mouse off-course. That happens because I zoom in to try to get as exactly on the edge of the hand as possible, but I have to scroll up to get the rest of it, and my mouse moves the lasso out of control. 

[mglush · Accepted solution]

What version of Photoshop are you using?

In  the last few version so of PS, if you choose one of the selection tools (like Quick mask for instance), in the Options bar, you will see an option named "Select Subject" If you click on that, it will do a pretty good job of selecting your hand.

Then I would suggest putting it on its own layer so that it stays clean and sharp. After doing that, you can fill the original layer with blue and get a really clean and smooth background. You could also do a blue graident from top left to bottom right for visual interest.

Let us know if that helps!

Michelle

[barbara_a]

I agree with mglush. It would be easy to select the hand. Select Subject usually requires some cleanup (it helps to zoom in), but it can save a lot of time by giving you a decent start on a seletion. Then filling a separate layer with solid blue would give you a perfectly smooth background,

[kirbydoo]

I like this idea. Do you know if there's way to correct flaws as pictured below? I want to get the rest of the letter d.

[mglush]

Use the Object selection tool, hold down the Shift key and click in the area that's not selected, and if need be, continue clicking until you have selected it all. 

[kirbydoo]

I see. I've tried to do that several times in that particular area of the hand and text but nothing happens. The first time, PS began loading for several seconds but nothing changed, and now every time I try, there's no more loading. Maybe it doesn't think there is anything left to select?

[kirbydoo]

Just wanted to give a quick update - I finally got it to work. Now, I just need to figure out how to create a background without the hand becoming attached to the new background layer. I want to simply place the hand over the new background, but every time I move it out of the way to place the new background, it becomes attached to the new background layer and part of it gets cut off.

[SJRiegel]

create a new layer under the hand layer, and set up your background on it. 

On the hand layer, set up a layer mask to remove the blue areas from the hand layer. (The mask is better than deleting or erasing, because you can easily fine tune it.

[kirbydoo]

It worked! Thank you very much. I'm happy with the result.

[mglush]

I agree with Bojan, I think using Gaussian blur woudl smooth it out really nicely.

I took a screen shot of your image and took it into PS and chose Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur and cranked it all the way up to the edge at 1000.

Here is the result:

Does that give you the result you want? Also, you can run the filter on it as many times as you want until you get what you are looking for.

Let us know if that helps!

Michelle

[SJRiegel]

Blur > Average should do this all in one go.