Hi,

For a lot of the black and white photos I'm working on, using Image->Mode->Compose with LAB shows a lot of details and seems like a good place to start. I've tried to duplicate the results with Levels and Curves with some success. I just try to eyeball it.

I have some specific problems:

H20 water marks? I fixed up the scratches and bends with the cloning tool, but how do you handle watermarks. I mean real H20 stuff. A third of the picture has a different color (the black has what appears to the eye to be white film over it). The Dodge and Burn tool doesn't seem to help. I tried blurring, but the wall and curtain have a texture.

Glare in eyeglasses or frames? I have used the Dodge and Burn tool to reduce the glare, and then I clone or draw with a fuzzy brush any part of the spectacles that came up missing. Is that pretty much it?

White sky? In a color photo I have, the sky is white. I looked in more details and there just doesn't seem to be any data there. I tired playing around with an edit mask (which I'm not too familiar with) and doing a gradient blue to white. So far it doesn't look very realistic. It is a little difficult because part of the sky is behind trees. Anyone ever add a blue sky?

Questions:

I'm doing a lot of adding and subtracting to selections. Why does the selection tool sometimes turn into a move tool? It seems like I have to go to some really strange places in the image to get a minus or plus sign.

In a selection can you change 1 pixel color to another?

If you see a pattern, and you want to temporarily paint with it to solve a problem, do you have to create a permanent pattern or brush, or can you use some magic keystroke to temporarily define it and use it?

Thank you.