Retouching a Washed Out Photo

Find out how to fix typical scanned photos with low contrast. In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn how to use the clone tool to heal scratches and the brightness/contrast tool to restore contrast.

Open an image of an old damaged photo you want to retouch. The photo I picked has some scratches in it so we're going to take those out.

Select the clone stamp tool and begin to patch the scratch. Zoom in very close and Alt click close to the areas around the scratch. Make sure your clone stamp tool's brush size is small enough so you can get good accuracy. Do this for the whole scratch until it is no longer noticeable.
Again, with the clone stamp tool selected Alt click somewhere on the bush, then begin to patch the rip. You may have to Alt click again to get a fresh area to clone.
Once the rip is patched go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast . Change the brightness and contrast levels until your image no longer looks washed out
Now this won't look completely fixed so you have to go into the Channels panel. Window > Channel . Select the Blue channel then go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast . Before you do anything make sure the other channels are still visible so you can get a preview. Now move the brightness and contrast sliders until the image looks more natural and less washed out. After changing the brightness/contrast of the blue channel, check to see if it looks better. If it still looks washed out then try doing the same process to the Red and Green channels. I used these settings:
Details in the background are still blurry at this stage so to sharpen them we're going to use Unsharp Mask