aff photo help with cleaning up scans

[RandallCC]

Is there a way I can remove the red lines without having to resort to inpainting/healing/erasing? Some combination of adjustments & masks perhaps. 

I am not very experienced with color and tonal work. Red lines do not have to go completely, just be less prominent.

Any help or pointers to an elegant solution will be very much appreciated. Peace!

[Joachim_L]

A HSL adjustment would be a good start. Click on the Adjustment icon on the Layer panel, pick HSL, click the red dot move Luminosity Shift completly to the right.

[markw]

If after the HSL you still want to remove more, then the Clone brush and Inpainting brush can be used to good effect.
If you put a Pixel layer above the image and work on that with the brushes set to use ‘Current Layer & Bellow’ the Cloneing and Inpainting will be totally non destructive and easily reversible.

[Andy05]

Hm. Nobody mentioned curves yet? They could give quite some good starting point for refining. See the example - 3 quick edits on curves within a couple of seconds will give that result.

[EDIT: Sorry, missed that you want to remove the red lines only. So only the red's curve needs to be edited]

[RandallCC]

Thanks guys, this helps.

 

16 hours ago, Andy05 said:

Hm. Nobody mentioned curves yet? They could give quite some good starting point for refining. See the example - 3 quick edits on curves within a couple of seconds will give that result.

 

When you say "curves", you are not referring to the curves-adjustment, but to the general blend options of the layer, right? This:

[Andy05]

1 hour ago, RandallCC said:

Thanks guys, this helps.

 

When you say "curves", you are not referring to the curves-adjustment, but to the general blend options of the layer, right?

Yes, exactly.