Vajram

Repairing digital Photographs Part 1

Adobe Senior Creative Director
Russell Brown shows you how to repair your
digital images with Adobe® Photoshop®

In this demo, we will repair a photograph taken with a low-resolution digital camera—in this case, the Kodak DC50. Often these cameras produce excellent results, but they have a few deficiencies that can be repaired digitally using layers. This technique is also quite useful for repairing badly scanned images.

REPAIRING DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS, PART 1

1. Open your digital image file in Photoshop. Zoom inon the image and take a close look at the problem areas, especially noting the skin tone in this image.

Preferences For this demo, we chose Preferences > Display & Cursors, and selected. Brush Size and Precise.

2. Go through the RGB channels. Press Command/ Ctrl+1 for the Red channel, Command/Ctrl+2 for the Green, and Command/ Ctrl+3 for the Blue channel. Notice the artifacting and extra noise in the Blue channel. The Blue channel is the telltale channel of a scanned image and often will show the errors of the scan.

Blue channelThe CCD (ChargedCouple Device) inthe camera is leastsensitive to the blues, and it is more difficultto interpret those colors.Also, when you capturean image with a digital camera, it’s compressedwith JPEG compression. The combination ofthese two factors creates noise in theblue channel.

3. Zoom out of the image and return to the RGB composite. Here’s how to easily fix this image using Photoshop layers. Duplicate the Base Layer by dragging it onto the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Double-click this new layer and rename it Color Blur.

Shortcuts Throughtout this document, “Command/Ctrl” means Command on the
Macintosh® and Ctrl on Windows®. “Option/Alt” means Option on the
Macintosh and Alt on Windows.

4. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Choose values based on the resolution of the image. You want to soften the image—not lose the image completely, but soften it—especially in the troubled area of the blue channel.

5. With the Color Blur layer still targeted, create an overlay of the two layers using Color mode from the pop-up menu in the Layers palette.

Color mode Colors are overlaid on the existing pixels while the highlights and shadows of the base color are preserved. The base color is not replaced, but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness and darkness of the original.

6. Zoom in to the image and look at the same area. Press Command/Ctrl+3 to go to the blue channel again. See how the noise has been smoothed out. Amazing but true! But wait, there’s more...

7. Let’s continue working with this image and give it more of a portrait look by softening the focus of the image, as if it were shot through a special filter. Duplicate the Color Blur layer by dragging it to the New Layer icon, and then double-click the new layer and rename it Soft Focus.

8. With the Soft Focus layer targeted, change the mode back to Normal and set opacity to 30%. This creates a nice soft look around the edges of the image, especially the face, hair, and hat areas.

Opacity Tip When a selection tool is active, pressing any of the numeric keys
changes the opacity to the corresponding percentage. Press 1 for
10%, 0 for 100%, and so on.

9. The eyes are also being softened, which is not something we want, so we will create another layer to sharpen parts of the image. Duplicate the original Base Layer, and then move it to the top (above the Soft Focus layer). Name this layer Sharpen Details.

10. Create a new layer by clicking the New Layer icon, and then move it to the bottom of the stack. Optionclick the eye icon for this layer, and then choose Select All and fill the layer with white. Deselect. This new layer is needed only to preview the effects of blending layers—which you are about to see.

Fill shortcut Pressing Option/Alt+ Delete fills the area with the foreground color. Pressing Command/Ctrl+Delete fills the area with the background color.

11. Click the eye icon for the Sharpen Details layer so that only the bottom and top layers are visible. Target the Sharpen Details layer.

12. Now we will isolate the areas of this layer that need to overlay the image. Doubleclick the layer to bring up the Layer Options dialog box. Make sure Preview is checked. Move the This Layer highvalue range slider (white triangle) to the left. Notice that areas of the face and hat are being eliminated.

Blending Layers The sliders here let you define which pixels are blended by indicating a range of brightness values for the replacement pixels. In our example, the highlight range was split to soften the layer, giving it a semi-transparent and fogged look. The further apart the triangles, the softer the appearance of the layer.

13. The transition is very harsh and needs to be softened. Option/Alt+click the white triangle slider, and move half of the triangle to the left. Splitting the triangle softens the transition. Move the two half-triangles around to achieve a soft look, being sure not to add back detail where you don’t want it.

14. The face has been adjusted fine, but too much of the red shirt is showing. Select the Red channel in the Blend If pop-up menu. Now adjust the slider to isolate the reds. Remember to split the slider to soften the image. Go back to the Gray channel to do any final adjustments, and then click OK.

15. Click the eye icon to view the other layers and turn off the bottom layer eye icon. Looks pretty good! On to the next phase.

Before and after To see the effects of sharpening, click the eye icon on and off
next to the Sharpen Details layer. This trick can be used on any of the layers.

16. Another thing we can do to this image is to bring back some of the white in the eyes, which was dimmed when the soft blur was applied. Zoom in on the eye and target the Soft Focus layer. To bring back the detail, we will make a layer mask. Press Comand/Ctrl-click the New Layer mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a layer mask.

Add Layer Mask A layer mask can be added to any layer to isolate particular areas you don’t want affected.

17. Choose a small brush, set the opacity to 50%, make sure the foreground color is black, and begin painting in the area of the eye where you would like to bring back that nice white highlight. Notice that you are painting on the layer mask, and not directly on the image.