Behind the Scenes – Retouching Dust and Scratches on Einstein

Einstein needed a little cleanup.

Sometimes I like the dust and scratch look of archival photos:

But I felt like the wise eyes of Einstein were being obscured behind the distracting dust particles:

I only retouched at about 250% for this one. When I do something for press, I retouch at about 800%.

But at either percentage, I like to retouch rough. I pick up the graininess with the clone tool so that the photo maintains its vintage look. Or, if I have had to smooth something out, I will add a bit of noise back in. Gotta keep it real… looking at least.

That’s all. World’s shortest blog post. But the point was made, so why go on…

Have a nice one!

Photo credit © Library of Congress / Prints and Photographs Division / LC-H27- A-2848