Removing dust & scratches from photos - help!

[PleaseWorkAdobeActivation]

Hi everyone

I have found an old family archive of photographs which I'm wanting to digitise, enhance, possibly colour and print out for Christmas presents (yep, this is a long term project!).

I'm a bit stuck at the first stage and could use some advice.

When I scan the pictures using an Epson V700 scanner, though it's capturing all the detail which is great, it's also capturing dust and scratch marks on the picture and particularly irritatingly dust and lint marks that are trapped under the scanner glass!

I can't take apart or clean the scanner glass so those marks are transferring to the scans I'm making.

It will take (and is taking) hours to painstakingly remove all these marks by hand with the spot removal tool and I was wondering if there was anything automatic that was more effective?

I have tried...

Photoshop - Dust and scratch removal tool - it doesn't do a great job as it just blurs the picture, or otherwise adversely affects the picture which I don't want.

Lasersoft Photoshop SRDx Plug-in - this tool can identify spots on photographs better than the PS dust and scratch, but it's removal efforts are abysmal, leaving a smudgy area behind that doesn't match the grain or texture of the original picture. I'm very disappointed with it.

Topaz Labs AI suite / collection - These programs have been designed to remove digital noise, and do it very well, but unfortunately they don't know what to do with old style physical dust. So I've got nowhere with that.

What I'd really like is a program that I can train. Has anyone used Adobe Audition? It's noise reduction feature is superb, I can select an area that's silent except for crackily background noise, tell the program that's what I want to get rid of and it does a great job cleaning it up. I really could do with a program like that!

But currently, I'm at a loss! If anyone can point me to some advanced techniques to detect and remove dust / scratches on photographs, or point me to some software that can I would be most appreciative. I don't mind buying something for the task if it works well, it'll save me hours and a lot of wrist ache in the long run!

Thanks in advance.

[Per Berntsen]

PleaseWorkAdobeActivation  wrote

dust and lint marks that are trapped under the scanner glass!

Removing the scanner glass is relatively simple.

See for instance Cleaning Epson V700 Flatbed Scanner Glass

Dust and scratches on the photos themselves will have to be removed manually, and yes, it's a lot of work.

The spot healing brush is probably the best tool for most of the spots, but you may need to use the clone stamp as well.

Adding a temporary levels adjustment layer to darken the image will make the spots easier to see.

I'm not aware of any software that will do this automatically.

[Stephen Marsh]

Photoshop - Dust and scratch removal tool - it doesn't do a great job as it just blurs the picture, or otherwise adversely affects the picture which I don't want.

Often works better with a feathered selection around different areas of the image, with the dust and scratches settings tailored to suit the current area, it's a balancing act.

[Chuck Uebele]

As Stephen said, clean the glass. I tend to use dust and scratches on a duplicate layer. I then add an all black layer mask and paint in the areas that need dust removal. This allows me to avoid the areas of great detail that would require some other means of retouching. It does just take time.

[Sebastian Bleak]

Hi

Sounds like you might need to do some of the work manually with the retouching tools.

Here's a video showing a workflow with Dust & Scratch

Ep17 Remove dust and scratches in Photoshop - YouTube

Hope you find this helpful!

[SpaceHeads]

I also have historical photos with major scratches, fold lines and ink notations. Using both Neural.love and Google photos magic eraser I've quickly removed the most offending problems, enhanced faces and resolution.

[Trevor.Dennis]

This thread dates back to 2019, and since then we have Neural Filters with the very effective Photo Restoration tool.  It's not perfect but using the tool and the tiniest bit of clean up gets you a very long way, and in a very short time.