7 L A N G F O R D ' S S TA R T I N G P H O T O G R A P H Y Editing techniques N ow let's throw a few more techniques into the editing arena for good measure. More than enhancing existing detail, these techniques are designed to change the information in your pictures and so are usually considered editing techniques. Dust and Scratches filter It seems that no matter how careful I am, my scanned images always contain a few dust marks. The Dust and Scratches filter in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements helps to eliminate these annoying spots by blending or blurring the surrounding pixels to cover the defect. The settings you choose for this filter are critical if you are to maintain image sharpness whilst removing small marks. Too much filtering and your image will appear blurred, too little and the marks will remain (see Figure 7.30).