Automatic Photo Restoration – New AI Neural Filters in Photoshop

Photo Restoration in Photoshop, in One Click and Then by Hand

An old print that has been scanned comes with two problems at once: it is covered in dust and scratches, and the whole thing has gone orange. Both used to be slow, careful work with the Clone Stamp and the Healing Brush. The Photo Restoration neural filter now does most of the first job by itself, and the Colorize filter has a go at the second.

What follows is the order used in the tutorial on a scan of a small print, including where each filter earned its place and where it did not.

Convert to a Smart Object First

Right-click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object before you open any filter. Neural filters are no exception. Do it first and the filter settings stay live, so you can reopen Photo Restoration a week later and change the sliders instead of starting over.

Finding Photo Restoration in Neural Filters

Go to Filter and then Neural Filters. Photo Restoration sits at the very bottom of the list, marked as a beta. The first time you use it you may see a small cloud icon next to it, which means the filter still has to download before it will run.

Turning the switch on is the whole operation. Photoshop analyzes the image and starts working on the device.

The Two Sliders That Do the Work

Photo Restoration opens with Photo Enhancement and Scratch Reduction. On a scan whose main problem is scratches, Scratch Reduction is the one to push, and taking it all the way to 100 is not unreasonable.

Photo Enhancement is worth bringing up too, though watch your subjects: it can darken faces more than you want. The before and after toggle inside the filter is the fastest way to judge it, and it is worth clicking a few times rather than trusting the preview alone. Some of what looks like damage may be real detail, such as sparkles on water.

The Adjustments Panel, and When to Leave It Alone

Under Adjustments there is Noise Reduction and Color Noise Reduction. Noise Reduction costs detail quickly, and on a small scan there is not much detail to spend, so it often does more harm than good.

Color Noise Reduction pulls some of the color out. On a print that has gone red with age that is not a loss, which is a good example of a slider being useful on one image and pointless on another.

Output to a New Layer, Not the Original

The output menu offers a new layer or a smart filter. A new layer is the safer choice, because it lets you mask the result on and off wherever the filter got something wrong. Nothing about the restoration is then permanent.

Colorize, and Why Image Size Decides the Result

Colorize is in the same Neural Filters panel, and it reads a scene well: it recognizes people, sky and water, and assigns plausible color to each. It rewards detail, so it does its best work on large images with plenty of information and its weakest on a small scan.

Beyond Auto Color Image there are profiles to try, and a manual mode. In manual coloring you click a region, tell Photoshop what color it should be, and it applies that to the area it has identified: click the water and choose a blue, click the sky and choose something brighter, then pull the saturation back when it overshoots.

Output Colorize as a new color layer, and run it as its own pass. In the recording Photo Restoration was still switched on when Colorize was output, and the dust and scratches were still there. The fix was to hide that color layer, go back to Filter and then Neural Filters, and run Photo Restoration by itself to a new layer, with Scratch Reduction at 100 and Photo Enhancement down a little. That leaves one restored layer with the color layer above it. Because that layer is already set to the Color blend mode, you can pick up the Brush, hold Alt or Option to sample a color you like, and paint over the areas the filter got wrong. Lowering the layer opacity lands you somewhere between the filter result and the original, which is often where the truthful version sits.

Finishing With the Camera Raw Masking Tools

Add a new empty layer above everything, then use Image and Apply Image to collapse what you can see onto it. Convert that to a Smart Object and open the Camera Raw Filter.

In the masking panel, Select Background gives you the scene behind the people, where dropping the highlights and adjusting exposure adds back some of the dynamic range a faded print has lost. A second mask made with Select Subject picks out the people so their exposure and contrast can be set separately. Select Objects was actually tried first, clicking on each person and holding Alt or Option to subtract. It worked okay, but that mask was deleted in favor of Select Subject, which worked a lot better. None of these masks are painted by hand.

When the Colorized Version Is Not the One to Deliver

On this particular scan, Colorize got close without being convincing, and the remaining orange cast read as wrong rather than vintage. A Black and White adjustment layer on top of the whole stack was the honest answer, with the option of letting a little color through underneath.

That is worth saying plainly: the restoration worked, the colorization did not, and the finished file is better for admitting it. With a larger, more detailed scan the same Colorize filter can be excellent.

What Actually Changed

The starting point was a heavily orange print covered in dust and scratches. A few clicks later the dust and scratches are almost entirely gone, the tone is balanced, and every stage is still a live filter on a Smart Object.

The traditional tools have not gone anywhere. Neural filters take the tedious part off your hands, and the Clone Stamp, the Healing Brush and a layer mask are still there for whatever is left.

Quick Reference: Keys, Menus and Settings

• Keep it editableRight-click the layer > Convert to Smart Object
• Remove scratchesFilter > Neural Filters > Photo Restoration: Scratch Reduction 100, Photo Enhancement to taste, Output: New Layer
• Add colorColorize as its own pass: Auto Color Image or click areas to color by hand; Output as New Color Layer
• Fix the colorB, Alt/Option-click to sample, paint on the color layer; lower its Opacity
• Stamp what you seeNew layer, Image > Apply Image, then Convert to Smart Object
• Tone with masksFilter > Camera Raw Filter > Masking: Select Background, then Select Subject
• DeliverBlack & White adjustment layer on top; Shift-click the new layers and group them