Removing Dust and Scratches Correctly (Part 1)

Valentine's Day has me going through family albums, looking at my parents' wedding pictures. Unfortunately, for older prints, the lamination isn't that sophisticated and time has scratched their surfaces so they are, on close inspection, quite dirty. Even for newer prints not taken with a digital camera, careless handling and storage adds clingy, practically permanent dust. Fortunately, Photoshop and Elements has a tool for easy removal of these artifacts - the Dust and Scratches Tool. Today I'll show you the correct way to use the tool on a basic level (I'll need to teach another basic skill - Layer Masks, coming soon - to show how to use it on an intermediate level). Hopefully this way you can breathe new life into your old pictures (with the help of a scanner, of course).

Click on the image to see the dust and scratches in all their glory. By the way, that is my aunt, not my mum. I'm using Elements here, but the instructions for Photoshop are exactly the same.

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