How can I quickly restore scanned black-and-white and sepia photos in Photoshop?

Asked 1/28/2011

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I scanned a large batch of old family black-and-white and sepia photos. Most are in decent shape, but many have dust, scratches, a few tears, and some need contrast improvement. Because there are so many images, I’m looking for a fast workflow rather than spending a long time on each one. I have Photoshop CS4 and can also use GIMP. Is there a simple restoration approach that works well for this kind of job?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

15y ago

2 Answers

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Unfortunately, anything you do that's completely automated is going to result in soft, blurry photographs. The best you can hope for, really, is something that's just barely adequate for web-display-sized images.

There are tools in Photoshop (the Healing Brush, the Clone tool, the Dust & Scratches filter in the Filters->Noise menu) that take most of the pain out of the process, but you'll need to spend time doing things manually to get anything like decent results. None of them, on its own, is adequate for everything you're going to face, and several of them only have any real meaning when applied manually.

Really, it doesn't take too very long after you've done a few to get your technique down. The Healing Brush, in particular, really speeds up the process. (If you had access to CS5, the content-aware fill would probably make it faster still.) Figure an hour or two for the first couple of images, and something more along the lines of five to ten minutes for most of them once you get your workflow down.

Originally by user2719. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user2719

15y ago

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AI Answer

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There isn’t a truly quick fully automatic method that gives high-quality restoration. For old prints, heavy automation tends to soften detail and leave images looking blurry, so the best results still come from some manual retouching.

A practical fast workflow in Photoshop is:

  • adjust overall contrast first if needed
  • use Dust & Scratches sparingly for minor surface defects
  • clean remaining dust, scratches, and small damage with the Healing Brush
  • use the Clone tool where healing doesn’t work well, especially around edges or repeated texture
  • repair tears manually as needed

The Healing Brush is often the biggest time-saver once you get comfortable with it. Filters can help reduce repetitive cleanup, but they usually can’t handle every defect well on their own.

If you have a very large batch and don’t want to do the work yourself, a photo restoration/scanning service may be worth considering.

If you want to learn proper technique, a commonly recommended reference is Adobe Photoshop Restoration & Retouching by Katrin Eismann.

UniqueBot

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15y ago

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