Remove Scratches and Stains from Digital Photos with AKVIS Retoucher

Everything went fine with the download and installation of Retoucher. Once it is installed, you may have to add it to your list of recognized plugin locations in order for your photo editing software to recognize it.

 

AKVIS Retoucher has a very simple user interface, and it’s fairly straightforward to apply. Before calling in the plugin, you do have to select the areas of the photograph that you want to fix. You can select them and correct them one at a time, but it will save some time if you select multiple areas at once.

After selecting the problem areas, you can access the plugin which will open in a new window.

From here, all you have to do is click the green “restore” button to apply the changes if you want to use the default settings. There are only three settings you have to worry about modifying here – search radius, compare radius, and variance.

When you’re ready to apply the changes, just click the “apply button” and you’ll be returned to your image editor with the modified photography. All in all, it’s a very quick and easy process.

In addition to removing stains, tears, and scratches from photographs, Retoucher is capable of getting rid of other flaws, such as date stamps, wires, and unwanted objects as well. To test this out, I used a photograph my mother emailed me (her pictures always have date stamps).

Getting rid of the date stamp itself is pretty easy, but reconstructing the area of the photo that it used to occupy is what can cause problems when only using basic editing tools, especially in this particular photo where the background behind the date stamp is somewhat complex. Here’s the result I obtained after selecting the date stamp as a single object and applying Retoucher.

Again, that’s a pretty decent result, but how does it compare with other editing tools like the object remover tool in Paint Shop Pro? The problem with trying to use the object remover tool here is that the background is complex enough that the date stamp would need to be broken down in a whole lot of little parts, one for each change in texture and color of the background. This process could take an hour or more. In contrast, the entire date stamp could be selected when using Retoucher. With Retoucher, removing the date stamp took less than a minute.

I also tried using the scratch remover and blemish removal tool to see how they would fare in this photo. Just as with the object remover, both could probably do the trick if you had an hour or more to spend, but neither was offering any real shortcuts.

The Home license for AKVIS Retoucher is $87, and the Business license runs $98 for either the Mac or Windows version. Each license does allow you to install the plugin on two separate machines so that does help mitigate the price a bit.

While this wouldn’t be a bad price at all if Retoucher was available as a standalone product like AKVIS Magnifier, it is somewhat on the high side for a plugin. However, it is excellent at what it does, and if you do a lot of restoration work, the time saved by Retoucher could easily make the price worthwhile.

The performance of AKVIS Retoucher is extremely impressive, and it’s one of the easiest plugins to use on the market today. The only thing holding me back from giving this a 5 as an overall rating is the price, which isn’t that bad if you’re able to get a lot of use out of the product, but does push the application out of buying range for the casual user.

If you want to try Retoucher out for yourself, you can download a free trial of the plugin from the AKVIS web site. This 10-day trial version is fully functional, so you’ll be able to see everything it's capable of before deciding to buy.

Also, be sure to check out the other items in Bright Hub's collection of Paint Shop Pro tutorials and plugin reviews to find out about more tools available for your photo editing projects.