Touching up photos

[itchster]

hi i am not sure if this is the right forum so feel free to tell me off if so

I am touching up some old photos (from 1980) for my parents (its their wedding photos, their 25th anv this year). Some of the photos either have vertical or horizontal pinkish and green lines in the photo (not totaly striking but you can see them) obviosly i scanned them using my HP all in one on 300x300 rez. Is their any programs that i can use to get rid of this or minimize it?

just though i would ask

Itchster

 

[mkrishnan]

Yes, any good graphics manipulation software will let you do this. The top picks would be Photoshop (elements or CS) or GIMP.... Pricing ranges from free (GIMP), $40 (PS Elements), a lot (PS CS). You could also download the trial version (free) of PS CS or PS Elements and see what you think -- it's a fully functional one month trial.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Are the lines in the original photographs? Or introduced in scanning them?

Make a duplicate copy of the file to experiment on, save the original.
You can also create layers to work on, to see how the fix compares with/blends with the background

It can be tricky to fix aberrations that extend across the photo, as opposed to a spot or scratch in one area, because these cut across areas of varying detail. You can use a clone brush to paint back in detail from an adjoining area, but your fix tends to be identifiable because the eye picks out the repeating elements when they are strung together in a line.

You may be able to select just the lines, and use the Hue/Saturation controls to shift the colours back closer to where they should be.

 

[mkrishnan]

You may be able to select just the lines, and use the Hue/Saturation controls to shift the colours back closer to where they should be.

Yeah, if you're lucky, and the colored lines are not saturated, but still have color detail (and a red tint) this will be pretty easy.

If the lines are thin and saturated, but they cut across detail, something like the healing brush from Photoshop might work really well. If they're thick and saturated, like CanadaRAM said, it will be tricky...