Computer Graphics with Photoshop - How to Enhance handwriting?

Author

How to Enhance handwriting?

geezer

2006-03-20, 6:17 pm

I have a few old pictures with obscure penciled hand-writing on the
borders. Is there a way that I can induce enhancement(s) to that area
of the pictures so as to clarify the hand-writing? It is important.

Thanks

Geezer

J. A. Mc.

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:15 GMT, geezer <wee@willy.com> found these unused
words floating about :

>I have a few old pictures with obscure penciled hand-writing on the
>borders. Is there a way that I can induce enhancement(s) to that area
>of the pictures so as to clarify the hand-writing? It is important.
>
>Thanks
>
>Geezer

Select the area of concern and work with the curves tool.

Mike

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

"geezer" <wee@willy.com> wrote in message
news:46tt121p86odsr6rljrkbjbnj56mmhi5fe@4ax.com...
> I have a few old pictures with obscure penciled hand-writing on the
> borders. Is there a way that I can induce enhancement(s) to that area
> of the pictures so as to clarify the hand-writing? It is important.
>
> Thanks
>
> Geezer

Hi - can you expand a bit on what exactly the problem is? If the handwriting
is illegible because of the writer's "scrawl" then there's not much
Photoshop will do to help you. However, if the writing is faded or damaged
in some way, or if it's straying into the image itself, there are many ways
Photoshop can help. Thanks.

KatWoman

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

"J. A. Mc." <jaSPAMc@gbr.online.com> wrote in message
news:t05u12lb861191gr0lgbebfpde5eftba1b@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:15 GMT, geezer <wee@willy.com> found these
> unused
> words floating about :
>
>
> Select the area of concern and work with the curves tool

couple of ideas:
use burn tool set on shadows, it will darken the pencil but leave the
highlight (page) unchanged
selective color may give a good result, try changing the grey and black only

the curves tool will mess with the background as well as the pencil marks

Paul Furman

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

KatWoman wrote:

> couple of ideas:
> use burn tool set on shadows, it will darken the pencil but leave the
> highlight (page) unchanged
> selective color may give a good result, try changing the grey and black only
>
> the curves tool will mess with the background as well as the pencil marks

Unsharp mask might help.

John Forest

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

What I would do is select the area of handwriting and then go to
IMAGE>ADJUST>THRESHOLD and play around with the slider to make it as legible
as possible. This tool sets a point that has everything lighter as white
and everything darker as black.

J. A. Mc.

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:27:39 -0500, "KatWoman"
<JolieXPrincessXKatanaXXX@hotmail.com> found these unused words floating
about :

>
>"J. A. Mc." <jaSPAMc@gbr.online.com> wrote in message
>news:t05u12lb861191gr0lgbebfpde5eftba1b@4ax.com...
>
>couple of ideas:
>use burn tool set on shadows, it will darken the pencil but leave the
>highlight (page) unchanged
>selective color may give a good result, try changing the grey and black only
>
>the curves tool will mess with the background as well as the pencil marks
>
We apparently have differing methods in using the curves ... I use
multi-points and do this quite often for archival documents.

You only -=mess=- with the portion of the curve that contains the
information.

geezer

2006-03-20, 6:18 pm

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:10:56 -0000, "Mike" <noot1967@yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

>
>"geezer" <wee@willy.com> wrote in message
>news:46tt121p86odsr6rljrkbjbnj56mmhi5fe@4ax.com...
>
>Hi - can you expand a bit on what exactly the problem is? If the handwriting
>is illegible because of the writer's "scrawl" then there's not much
>Photoshop will do to help you. However, if the writing is faded or damaged
>in some way, or if it's straying into the image itself, there are many ways
>Photoshop can help. Thanks.
>

I would say that the main problem is the lack of clarity of the
scrawl. The actual words are very faint (light gray). BTW
the graphic is B&W.

Thanks for youth interest

Geezer

2006-03-20, 10:14 pm

> Select the area of concern and work with the curves tool.

Aw, keep it simple. Create a new layer and change blend-mode: multiply or
pin-light is a good start.

2006-03-21, 6:14 pm

"geezer" <wee@willy.com> wrote in message
news:uodu1291avmig0ok0vgv6r0nnuq6eqgajd@4ax.com...
> I would say that the main problem is the lack of clarity of the
> scrawl. The actual words are very faint (light gray). BTW
> the graphic is B&W.

Can you post a sample somewhere so that we can see it?

KatWoman

2006-03-21, 6:14 pm

"2" <2@bad.com> wrote in message news:121um64lcss8v44@news.supernews.com...
>
>
> Aw, keep it simple. Create a new layer and change blend-mode: multiply or
> pin-light is a good start.
>
how do I love thee? Let me count the ways (to do this)

let us know what works best

C J Southern

2006-03-21, 10:14 pm

pepe

2006-03-22, 6:14 pm

"geezer" <wee@willy.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:46tt121p86odsr6rljrkbjbnj56mmhi5fe@4ax.com...
>I have a few old pictures with obscure penciled hand-writing on the
> borders. Is there a way that I can induce enhancement(s) to that area
> of the pictures so as to clarify the hand-writing? It is important.
>

you could try to cut and paste the hand writing on illustrator cs2 and use
the track-live paint option, work on it, then repaste it to ps

geezer

2006-03-22, 6:14 pm

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
<nomeundcognome@virgilio.it> wrote:

>
>"geezer" <wee@willy.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
>news:46tt121p86odsr6rljrkbjbnj56mmhi5fe@4ax.com...
>
>you could try to cut and paste the hand writing on illustrator cs2 and use
>the track-live paint option, work on it, then repaste it to ps
>
>

I borrowed a copy of David Karlins' "How to Do Everything with
Illustrator CS", to see what you are talking about. I don't find the
subject 'track', 'live', 'track-live' or 'live paint'. Can you
explain a little?

Thanks

Geezer

bob_miller@agilent.com

2006-03-22, 6:14 pm

In article <1e63221sk6hjim29j1jpr84pmri3mjg8go@4ax.com> geezer <wee@willy.com> wrote:
: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
: <nomeundcognome@virgilio.it> wrote:

: I borrowed a copy of David Karlins' "How to Do Everything with
: Illustrator CS", to see what you are talking about. I don't find the
: subject 'track', 'live', 'track-live' or 'live paint'. Can you
: explain a little?

I think the reference was to the "live trace" feature, which is new in CS2.
While it is good for vectorizing images of hand-drawn stuff, including handwriting, it
generally doesn't improve legibility. Indeed, the image almost always needs to be
pre-processed in Photoshop (essentially improving the legibility far beyond
what a human can figure out). I would say that in general live trace
produces a *less* legible (but more flexible) result than the source image. There
are knobs on the trace algorithm, but they are global in effect and generally are
there to produce artistically pleasing results; you will undoubtedly need to
play with the image as pixels on a more local basis to maximize the legibility.

Bob Miller

geezer

2006-03-22, 6:14 pm

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:16:57 +0000 (UTC), bob_miller@agilent.com
wrote:

>In article <1e63221sk6hjim29j1jpr84pmri3mjg8go@4ax.com> geezer <wee@willy.com> wrote:
>: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
>: <nomeundcognome@virgilio.it> wrote:
>
>
>: I borrowed a copy of David Karlins' "How to Do Everything with
>: Illustrator CS", to see what you are talking about. I don't find the
>: subject 'track', 'live', 'track-live' or 'live paint'. Can you
>: explain a little?
>
>I think the reference was to the "live trace" feature, which is new in CS2.
>While it is good for vectorizing images of hand-drawn stuff, including handwriting, it
>generally doesn't improve legibility. Indeed, the image almost always needs to be
>pre-processed in Photoshop (essentially improving the legibility far beyond
>what a human can figure out). I would say that in general live trace
>produces a *less* legible (but more flexible) result than the source image. There
>are knobs on the trace algorithm, but they are global in effect and generally are
>there to produce artistically pleasing results; you will undoubtedly need to
>play with the image as pixels on a more local basis to maximize the legibility.
>
>Bob Miller
>

Thanks Bob

G