No matter how good the quality of the original photo is, there’s likely to be small smudges or dust marks in the scanned version. If the smudged or stained area is large, it’s usually best to try to remove it using the Clone Brush in the same way described in the last section. However, if there’s just a scattering of several small smudges and stains (try saying that three times fast!) on the photo, there’s a much faster and easier way to get rid of them with the Blemish Fixer. (For more details on how to use this tool, see this tutorial on Paint Shop Pro’s Blemish Fixer.)
All you have to do here is select the Blemish Fixer, zoom in on the areas of the photo that have dust marks or stains, adjust the size of the brush for that particular flaw, and click.
Here’s what the photo looks like at this point with all the major smudges and marks removed.
Another problem that you run into a lot with scanned copies of older photos is grainy, noisy backgrounds. While you can try to use a noise reduction tool to get rid of this, that choice may yield some mixed results and may even take away details from the subjects in the photograph.
One thing that you can try instead is Paint Shop Pro’s Soften Brush. This tool will smooth edges and reduce contrast in the areas to which it is applied. You can access this brush from the side panel tool bar.
Once you select the tool, make any desired changes, such as size and shape, to the brush and then use it to paint across the background of the photo.
Depending on the photo you’re restoring, you may want to pass over certain areas several times with the Soften Brush to achieve better blending. Below is the photo after applying this effect.
From here, you can make any other desired changes to the image, but since the goal for this editing project was to retain as much of the original photograph as possible, I’ll stop here. Both the original and the final photo are shown below so you can take a quick glance to see the results of these modifications.
Additional Resources: For more tips and tricks, be sure to check out the other Paint Shop Pro tutorials found here on Bright Hub’s Digital Photography Channel. Also, if you have several digital photographs that you’d like to restore, you may want to look into specific plugins like AKVIS Retoucher that have been developed to help speed up and simplify the restoration process.