What this mode does
The general detector on this site is tuned for isolated dust and scratches. A crazed print breaks that tuning: it has a dense web of lines, many of them touching, which a scratch detector either misses or rejects as one big blob. This route runs a separate detector built for the web.
It compares the scan with an opening three pixels wide, so only lines one or two pixels wide score, in both the dark and the light direction. The threshold is set from the scan’s own spread, so a dark print and a pale one are treated alike. Each connected group is then kept only if it is line-shaped: at least ten pixels long and covering little of its own bounding box.
The proposals go on the editable mask. The fill opens at a reach of six pixels, so where several cracks meet, the junction is filled from intact picture around it.
When this is the wrong tool
- Flaked emulsion, where pieces of the picture have fallen away, is loss, not a crack. It is classified as gone and is not filled by the automatic pass.
- A crack running along a strong edge in the picture (a jaw line, a door frame) may be left out by the shape test or may pull the edge with it. Check the mask there.
- Cracks in glass over a framed print are not on the print. Take it out of the frame before scanning.
Questions about cracked photos
Why do old photos crack like this?
How is this different from the scratch route?
It marked the edge of a sleeve or a strand of hair. What now?
Can a badly cracked face be repaired?
Is my photo uploaded?
Related
- Scratches and dustOpens with detection turned up and the brush already out.
- Narrow print creasesThe local fill opened at its widest reach for a thin fold with intact picture on both sides.
- Remove foxing and mould spotsA detector for brown spots two to forty pixels across, proposed on the mask for you to check before anything is filled.
- Scratches, tears and creases are three different problemsOne taxonomy, three fills, one of them built — and what a model does instead.
