There are fairly complex techniques in Photoshop for getting rid of burned-in speculars, shadows and unhelpful colour variations which I've used successfuly on many textures.

There is such wide variation in the degree of burn-in that I doubt that a one-size-fits-all solution is possible, and some texture sets exhibit these problems to such an extreme degree that they are beyond redemption.

The techniques shown in the first link in lmckenzie's post are a good start-point for serious photoshoppers, and while the second link is interesting, at first read-through I can't see an easy way to translate it into something that could be achieved in Photoshop.

I don't doubt that BB can do this using nodes, but I wouldn't know where to start with such an endeavour.

Anyway, hats off to RobynsVeil for starting this discussion - burned in speculars and shadows are starting to drive me up the wall - and if / when I do establish an easy to use workflow in Photoshop, I'll put it up.

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