Lift stains without redrawing the picture
Use inpainting only on specks and paper damage, on a duplicate, and compare it to the scan.
A coffee ring is not part of the drawing. A hesitant line might be. Inpainting cannot tell the difference, so you have to.
Tools
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Cleanup.pictures
A browser inpainting brush for removing spots. It invents the pixels underneath.
Adobe Photoshop
Remove and healing tools for the same spot cleanup on a desktop file.
How to do it
- 1
Circle the damage
On a printout or a new layer, mark only stains, dust, and scanner crud. If a mark is a pencil decision, leave it.
- 2
Paint a small mask
In cleanup.pictures or Photoshop's Remove tool, brush just past the speck so the tool sees paper around it. Work on a duplicate file.
- 3
Compare at 100 percent
Toggle the original. If a line got softer or a texture appeared that you did not draw, undo and spot-heal by hand instead.
- 4
Stop at the drawing
Do not 'clean up' the face, the hands, or the signature. Those are the picture.