Cleaning dust and scratches from DSLR and scanned film
Here's a tip for finding most of the dust specs and scratches on digital files or scanned slides or negs, particularly on open areas like blue sky. I've been using a variant of this for a few weeks, using just a levels adjustment layer, but an article in a recent PDN had a different technique by David Harpe and I just combined them. It's pretty effective, although it does increase the working size of your image file. You can remove the layers when you're done removing your dust and scratches.
1. Open your image in Photoshop
2. Click on "layer", then "new adjustment layer - Invert [3rd from the bottom of the pull-down adjustment layer menu". This creates a separate layer that you can manipulate without affecting the original image. The dust specs will be white-ish blobs, not dark. Use a levels adjustment layer to fine tune contrast (see below).
3. If you'd like to retain the dark blobs, on the Layers palette, at the top left, click on the drop down arrow next to "normal" and select "Difference" - near the bottom. If you use this step, I recommend also adding a levels adjustment to fine tune the contrast (see below).
4. Your dust and scratches should become more visible. Select the background layer, zoom to "actual pixels" or 100%, and remove the specs with the healing or clone brush.
If you want to increase the visibility, do the following which will add another adjustment layer.
5. Click on "layer", then "new adjustment layer" - Levels".
6. For "Invert" layer only: On the levels histogram, move the far left slider to the right to darken the layer a little bit. This makes smaller dust specs more visible as well as specs that are in lighter areas of the image. You can adjust the right hand slider to get the best contrast for detecting dust on your image
7. For "invert" and "Difference" layers: On the levels histogram, move the far right slifer to the left to lighten the layer a bit, increasing the contrast with the dust blobs.
7. Select the background layer, zoom to "actual pixels" or 100%, and remove the specs with the healing or clone brush
8. When done, drag and drop the adjustment layers into the trash and save the cleaned image.
1. Open your image in Photoshop
2. Click on "layer", then "new adjustment layer - Invert [3rd from the bottom of the pull-down adjustment layer menu". This creates a separate layer that you can manipulate without affecting the original image. The dust specs will be white-ish blobs, not dark. Use a levels adjustment layer to fine tune contrast (see below).
3. If you'd like to retain the dark blobs, on the Layers palette, at the top left, click on the drop down arrow next to "normal" and select "Difference" - near the bottom. If you use this step, I recommend also adding a levels adjustment to fine tune the contrast (see below).
4. Your dust and scratches should become more visible. Select the background layer, zoom to "actual pixels" or 100%, and remove the specs with the healing or clone brush.
If you want to increase the visibility, do the following which will add another adjustment layer.
5. Click on "layer", then "new adjustment layer" - Levels".
6. For "Invert" layer only: On the levels histogram, move the far left slider to the right to darken the layer a little bit. This makes smaller dust specs more visible as well as specs that are in lighter areas of the image. You can adjust the right hand slider to get the best contrast for detecting dust on your image
7. For "invert" and "Difference" layers: On the levels histogram, move the far right slifer to the left to lighten the layer a bit, increasing the contrast with the dust blobs.
7. Select the background layer, zoom to "actual pixels" or 100%, and remove the specs with the healing or clone brush
8. When done, drag and drop the adjustment layers into the trash and save the cleaned image.
posted by Mike Shipman | 9:00:00 AM
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