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12. Clicking on Enhance and Brightness/Contrast and then Lev-
els results in this dialog box showing a histogram for the photo.
higher number. The proper amount of Sharpening is dependent on
the resolution of the image and the original scan. If you increase it
too much, you’ll start to see the pixels seem to glow. For this photo,
the best Amount was about 170%.
For photos you are using for modeling projects, this all you need.
However, I sometimes take one more step for scanned photos I
want to archive. Zoom-in on an image, and you’ll probably see
white spots in the dark areas and black spots in the light areas.
These are most likely due to dust and other contaminates on the
original negative when it was traditionally printed.
Getting rid of these spots is simple using the Clone Tool, which
looks like a rubber stamp. On my version of Photoshop Elements,
it is on the left, two rows up from the bottom [8]. The Clone
tool copies the pixels at a selected location and pastes them to
another location on the image. If those portions of the image
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13. First, move the left and right sliders so they align with the
left and right ends of the graph as shown here.
are nearly the same, the process will cover up the white or black
spots. Typically, the area you want to “clone” from is right next
to the item you want to cover up.
Zooming-in on my photo shows a typical group of white pixels
just above and to the left of the crane [16]. The background
next to this white spot is not very detailed and, when enlarged,
appears to be a simple pattern of various gray tones.
To use the Clone tool, start by zooming-in so that the area con-
taining the spot to be corrected is in view and enlarged. Then
select the Clone tool. You can right click the mouse to get a
selection of choices of small or larger circles, “fuzzy” circles, and
other choices. For this example, I selected a 13 pixel circle.
Move the Clone tool circle to an area near the white spot which
appears similar to the area surrounding the white spot. Then
