When I scanned this photo, I was delighted to see my great-grandfather John Costello! I have a small collection of photos of him. Each is precious because there are so few. But, this photo is pretty grainy. Graininess is a distraction. I wondered if one of the neural filters in Photoshop could help improve this photo. So I gave it try and was impressed by the result!
Let’s walk through the simple steps. This example was created using a subscription to Adobe Photoshop 2024.
Open a copy of your photo in Photoshop, navigate to the “Filter” menu, then click on “Neural Filters.”
Turn on the “Photo Restoration” option. Then move the “Photo enhancement” slider to the desired position. For this photo I used 80. To toggle between the original and the new version click on the small icon highlighted at the bottom of this screenshot. Once the photo is how you like it, click on “OK.”
Let’s zoom in on those selections:
Please remember to work on a copy of the digital image. It’s best to keep an unedited version of the original scan.
Here is the updated version of this precious photo:
In the updated version I thought I was seeing a thumbprint on half of John Costello’s face. I zoomed in and realized the woman in the dress with large daisies has black netting attached to her hat. Before, the netting wasn’t noticeable because of the graininess. I’m impressed that the neural filter did not remove the netting!
This is the first time I’ve used the neural filters to reduce graininess. It only took a few clicks and I love the outcome. What do you think? Does this feel like an appropriate use of AI in photo editing?
ps — This photo of my Grandma is the first time I’ve seen a resemblance between her and I. It’s her profile and the expression on her face. My husband also noticed it right away. I need to find the photo of myself I’m picturing in my mind and compare them!