Retouching Old Image Scans
The good thing about scanning is that you can create digital files of old photographs. The bad thing is that no matter how hard you try to eliminate dust and reduce artifacts--they will still somehow be part of your digital image. Sometimes, old glossy prints might have fingerprints and other print artifacts on the surface of the photo that you cannot clean away; usually, however, there are just a couple of spots that can easily be cleaned in Photoshop or GIMP. Then there are those scans that cause you to just shrug and say to yourself they are not worth the effort. The technology in the iPhoto '09 retouch tool appears to be "magic" and very easy to use. It is so easy, in fact, you might want to look at some of those "dusty old" scans you shrugged off and rethink editing them. Here is how.
Instructions
1. This is an old concert picture of Jethro Tull. Look at all the dust at the bottom of the image and in the background. Editing this image on GIMP or Photoshop would require blowing the image up and selecting each adjacent color with the eyedropper and using a brush tool to paint the background. I have done this many times and it takes time to do it right. First, I cropped the image slightly to get rid of the white at the bottom right and the dust at the very top. To open the RETOUCH TOOL click the full screen button to activate the editor.
2. Select the size of the brush to a mid-level size. This is big enough to do large areas. You do not have to blow up the image at all or select a paint color. The technology will read the adjacent colors and intensity and make the changes automatically.
3. You still need to work on sections at a time. First I did the bottom black section of the image. Just click on the dust and it is gone and blended. You can use it as a paintbrush and correct large areas at a time. Notice all the dust on the bottom is gone. There are still a couple of small spots, which I will tackle with a smaller brush later.
4. Still using the large brush I begin working at the top and middle backgrounds. The spots that are close to the band I will tackle with a smaller brush size. After finishing with the large brush, I reduce the brush size to small size to get the dust around the artists' bodies and between the microphones.
5. Once you are done with the small brush, leave it for a few minutes and come back to edit all of the dust spots you missed. This is kind of like proofreading an article twice. You will always find something you want to tweak. When you are done, save the file to a new name. This method is so much easier then doing it by selection and airbrush. The retouch tool in iPhoto '09 is superior to any other retouch tool I have used. I am sure it is the nature of the software algorithms, but to me it seems like magic!
