Which PE tools for these two issues?

[cglenn7777]

Being new to photo editing in general, I'm not sure which tools I should learn about for two specific issues on my own.  I've grown a little familiar with the spot healing brush tool to remove black specs and similar things.  The images below are greatly reduced in quality but show the problems.  I don't want anyone to actually work on these low file size images, but I really would like to know which tool(s) would be best for me to learn about for these issues.  Please note that I have some hand disability, specifically poor coordination, so 'free hand' work is more difficult than setting a tool and just clicking.

This first I have only this one, and there is a bar of light about one third of the way from the bottom, I think a developing problem.

The second is more of a concern.  I have a set of about 50 B&W images that were taken in 1975, near the end of life of my old college Olympic brand camera.  These images have parallel black lines going in the direction of the (manual) film feed. I tried using the spot healing brush tool, and it did work okay, but it seemed to leave a line of softer focus where used.  But because of my hand issues, I had to set the size a little large so when I swept along the line, I stayed on the line.

[99jon]

1. Use the clone stamp tool. Ensure aligned is checked. Hold down Alt and click once (e.g. below the highlight into the grass on the right. Drag the clone tool left and it should sample the similar aligned content from below.
2. With spot healing experiment with proximity or content aware. Click once on the start of a line. Hold down shift and click the end of a line for a perfect horizontal. Again it may be necessary to tidy up with some cloning.

[cglenn7777]

Where is the burn tool? I've googled, but all 2018 specific say how to use, one added 'it's on the toolbar,' but not on mine.  Enter burn in help...no hits!

[99jon]

The burn tool is nested with the sponge and dodge tool. Burn is used to darken and doge to lighten.

Click on the sponge and select from the tool options at the bottom or you can cycle through the three tool choices by tabbing with the O key.

[cglenn7777]

Thanks Mark, that burn tool is a sweet tool indeed.  I remember the frustrating hours I spent in the darkroom back in '75 burning and dodging.  Ain't digital wonderful?

[cglenn7777]

Tnanks, jon.  The clone stamp tool is cool too. I had fun playing with it.  I think the burn tool worked a little better for my eyes for the light bar removal.  Also, it has some use for the lines, except the background shade keeps changing so I have to re-clone frequently.  If others read this, also I had to change 'normal' to 'darken' in the options for the light bar.  Also, on my Logitech third-party keyboard (for Mac), it's the Option key that creates the clone.

This is a great user group.  Thanks for the help.

[Mark_Sand · Accepted solution]

For the first problem I used the Burn tool. I used the default values in my PSE version: Range Midtones, Exposure 50%, and set the brush size to about the size of the light streak (I show the brush size in this screenshot).

Depending on the particular case, you can drag the mouse to "paint" over the streak or "dab" with multiple clicks. Here I used a combination of both. Experiment with other Range and Exposure values.

If at the end you find that you darkened a particular portion too much, you can lighten that portion with the Dodge tool.

[Mark_Sand]

For the second problem, horizontal lines, my PSE version does not have the spot healing tool, so I used this method:

Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, draw a rectangle as tightly as possible around the line:

Use the arrow keys to move the selection to a good area just above or below the line.

Feather the selection 1 or pixels.

Copy the selection to the clipboard (Edit > Copy).

Paste the selection from the clipboard (Edit > Paste). This places the selection on a new layer.

Activate the Move tool and use the arrow keys to move the selection to cover the line:

Granted, this can be quite tedious if there are many lines.

Another thing I tried is the stand-alone program Inpaint.

Here I removed the lines using Inpaint. I selected the lines by painting a red mask (Inpaint allows you to paint a straight horizontal line).

Then clicked Erase:

BTW, Inpaint also does a great job removing unwanted objects from a picture!

Inpaint photo restoration software - remove elements from your photos

[cglenn7777]

I was finally able to get your good instructions to work for your first option, but I did not like the result.  After pasting, for example the boldest of the lines (the one running thru the hill), there was a 'double hill' where the paste was.  While this would work on a slate-blank sky, any coping from elsewhere really does not work for me.

I think I need the type of edit that the spot healing brush provides.  Unless there are other tools that use this approach, I'll have to get better at spot healing.

I'll hold off on third party software until perhaps another suggestion is posted.