How to Enhance handwriting?

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:15 GMT, geezer 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.

"geezer" wrote in message

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.

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:15 GMT, geezer 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

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

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.

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.

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:27:39 -0500, "KatWoman" found these unused words floating
about:

"J. A. Mc." wrote in message

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:33:15 GMT, geezer 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

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.

On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:10:56 -0000, "Mike"
wrote:

"geezer" wrote in message

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.

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

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.

"geezer" wrote in message

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?

"2" wrote in message

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.

how do I love thee? Let me count the ways (to do this)

let us know what works best

"geezer" wrote in message

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.

Adding and tweaking a contrast layer can help get you in the ball-park with a minimum of effort.

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:54:02 -0600, "2" wrote:

"geezer" wrote in message

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?

Here is a segment.

Thanks for your interest.

Geezer

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 10:54:02 -0600, "2" wrote:

"geezer" wrote in message

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?

Here is the entire picture. My prior post reflects some of the experimenting that I did. This attachment is the entire picture. Whet do you think?

Thanks

Geezer

"geezer" wrote

Here is the entire picture.

Unfortunately, this news group is for text-only. Your binary attachment was thrown away by my news server.

"geezer" ha scritto nel messaggio

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

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 06:46:56 -0600, "2" wrote:

"geezer" wrote

Here is the entire picture.

Unfortunately, this news group is for text-only. Your binary attachment was thrown away by my news server.

Sorry about that. I posted it again in
easynews.test and alt.binaries.easynews
Let me know if you can’t get it therein.

Thanks

Geezer

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
wrote:

"geezer" ha scritto nel messaggio

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

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

In article wrote:
: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
: 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

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 20:16:57 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

In article wrote:
: On Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:27:01 +0100, "pepe"
: 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

damn geezer even darker it’s just plain illegible handwriting

"geezer" wrote in message
news:

On Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:31:52 -0500, "KatWoman" wrote:

damn geezer even darker it’s just plain illegible handwriting

"geezer" wrote in message
news:

I’m afraid I agree. I was just hoping I could do something. Maybe like the do on NCIS etc.

Thanks anyway

Geezer