Difficult edit

DxO PhotoLab
1

I need your help.

I’ve been volunteering to restore old photographs for a local historical society for the last year. Most of the restorations have been simple: color shift, fading, tears, creases, etc. However, this one has me stumped. There are hundreds of mold spots! The repair/clone tool is effective, but the hundreds of spots is daunting and the results are mottled.

The HSL tool is effective at selecting the spots and desaturating lessens them, but I can’t find the tool combination to blend them in.

Any suggestions?

Jim

IRCHS-00644 Campbell's Barber & Tailoring
IRCHS-00644 Campbell's Barber & Tailoring1744×992 174 KB

3

I understand your problem because I also restore old photos, but fear that prints like this can be very difficult to get perfect.

Would you like to post a scan and I’ll have a look at whether I can work any magic on it?

5

Other than the large file upload, I’ve never attached a file to a post. How is it done? The upload arrow above posts the image, not the file.

6

But the image is the file and it will show as such in the post. Or, you could zip it up and upload that if you prefer. How big is the file?

7

Joanna,

I figured it out. Left click the image above then click the download button beneath the image.

Jim

8

Where ???

9

This is weird!

Hover the cursor over the photo above. A black line appears at the bottom edge: it contains file #, name size, etc and a double headed arrow at the right end of the line. Click on the arrow, the photo will expand and a blue label (“download”) appears. Click on “download” to get a copy of the file.

10

If you mean the image you first posted, that is nowhere near large enough to work on with only 1744 x 992 pixels

11

That’s another problem. The original scans were low res. I’ve tried to get larger files without success.

12

@jamhen2, you posted your question as a feature request.

Please add some text, so that we can see what you actually request from DxO.

13

So what are you using to create the scanned files? Or are you not doing the scanning yourself?

@sgospodarenko Could you move this thread to a better section, it is obviously not a feature request?

14

I think this is a typical situation when PL is not the best for editing. PS can do through Content aware fill perfectly the substitution in seconds. Try it…

Endre

15

Done. But, please, be careful it’s no more a EA section.

Regards,
Svetlana G.

16

For what ever it’s worth. You’re correct PS would be a better editor for this photo, but I wanted to challenge my self and PL.

I used the HSL tool to select and desaturate the mold spots and the the clone/repair tool to blend them into the background. The mottling that was left was selected with the local adjustments brush and slightly blurred to blend.

Not the best edit I’ve done, but good enough for the job.

Jim