Cloning & Sharpening tips

DJ-S1

I am in the process of scanning a bunch of old photos for a slideshow for my mother's surprise 70th birthday party. I've been doing pretty well fixing up old photos that are in pretty bad shape, but this one has me stumped. This shot is from around 1940 (my mom's the young one):



I can fix the color, scratches, etc. but any suggestions for the blue stuff? I tried cloning but there isn't much to clone in the area and it comes out looking crappy. Are there any tools for this sort of thing that I don't know about?

cletus

I started to play around with this and got some promising results.

The first thing that I did was to apply a channel mixer adjustment layer to convert the image to B&W. Since the "blue stuff" does have a blue cast, I used channel mixer settings of R:75, G:75, B:-50 and monochrome checked. This helped to subdue the blue stuff. I then created a new blank layer above the adjustment layer. I selected the clone tool with the mode set to darken and use all layers checked. I then went to work trying to clone out the blue stuff.

I think using this approach you'll find that you can fix the image... it's just going to take some careful cloning work to get it looking right.

DJ-S1

That's great Eric thanks so much! It's a bit over my level of PS right now but I'm sure I can follow along with your directions and get decent results. I just didn't even know where to start, so this is perfect.

It's one of the few photos we have of her from before high school, so I really wanted to try to fix it.

cletus

DJ-S1 wrote:

It's one of the few photos we have of her from before high school, so I really wanted to try to fix it.

It'll take some work but I'm sure you can do it!

Just remember... Do all of your cloning on a separate layer. That way if you make a mistake you can erase it without damaging the background image.

DJ-S1

cletus wrote:

It'll take some work but I'm sure you can do it!

Just remember... Do all of your cloning on a separate layer. That way if you make a mistake you can erase it without damaging the background image.

Well, that's something I haven't been doing but I should. Just ctrl-a, ctrl-c and ctrl-v will do it, right? I should do that for usm too. I have been doing levels layers and hsl layers, and I've been using layer masks quite a bit. So I am learning!

It's funny, I found a photo last night that I had 'shopped 2 months ago. It was a bit underexposed and needed some other tweaks. As soon as I saw it, I knew I could do a better job now than I did with what I knew then. So I re-did it and it looks so much better! I've learned a lot from you guys.

cletus

DJ-S1 wrote:

Well, that's something I haven't been doing but I should. Just ctrl-a, ctrl-c and ctrl-v will do it, right?

You don't need to make a copy of your background layer, you can just use an empty layer. When Use All Layers is checked, the clone tool will "see" all of the layers, but it will only paint on the current layer. When you're done you'll wind up with a layer that is empty (transparent) except for areas that you painted on using the cloning tool... Hope I haven't muddy this up too much.

On the other hand, if you want to be able to undo the effects of usm (or other similar PS tools) you would want to make a copy of your image onto a new layer before running the filter.

DJ-S1

Oh, that's cool. So actions like airbrushing or cloning don't need a copy just a new layer, and they all build on each other and can be turned off individually. But filters like USM or gaussian blur need a copy to work on. That makes sense.

But then what happens when I want to sharpen at the end, and I have cloned areas? If I copy the background layer, then the cloned areas won't get copied and the usm will look funny, won't it?

And I thought I was getting a handle on the whole layer thing...

cletus

DJ-S1 wrote:

But then what happens when I want to sharpen at the end, and I have cloned areas? If I copy the background layer, then the cloned areas won't get copied and the usm will look funny, won't it?

Good catch!

What you'll probably want to do is merge all of your layers before you sharpen. Your next question shoud be, 'if I merge all the layers wont I loose all the flexibility of multiple layers?' And the answer is yes... sort of.

When you're ready for a tool like USM try this little trick:

1. Select your top layer in the layers palette
2. Add a new layer
3. Now here is the trick:
   1. Hold down the Alt key (the Option key on a Mac)
   2. Click and hold the little triangle in the upper right corner of the layers palette to bring up the Layer Palette Menu
   3. Select Merge Visible from the menu

What this will do is merge all of your layers into the new layer you created. That way you can run usm on the merged layer and still keep all your individual layers seperate so you can go back and modify them.

If you really want to go nuts, here's a way to perform this little trick without touching the mouse!

PC Version:

1. Press Alt + Shift + ] this will select the top layer
2. Press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N this will create a new layer above the top layer
3. Press Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E this will merge the visible layers onto your new layer

Mac Version:

1. Option + Shift + ]
2. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N
3. Alt + Ctrl + Shift + E

DJ-S1

The more I learn, the more I have to learn! Thanks for the tutorial Eric, that's exactly what I wanted to do. Wouldn't even have known what to look for on my own. You 'da man!

wxwax

Instant Hall of Wisdom for cloning. Great thread, and an excellent tutorial by the ever generous Cletus.