Help with a scanned image

[Punkinsmom]

Hi gang!

A co-worker asked me to see what I could do with this xerox copy of a picture of her grandfather

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1hFrgmefq1gAXGwfvMc31qUbFzLmi

I came up with this but I'm still not happy with the result.

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1aBGhZoQGVOy3tBmVlnArlZ4nOhXUA

Do any of you have any suggestions? I just think it is way too grainy. Is that from the poor copy? I scanned at 300, should I drop the resolution and rescan?

Thanks for any help you can give.

[Jodi Frye]

Hi Sherrie, all she has is a zerox copy to give you to fix ? :shock:

[Wendy]

Hi Sherrie ...

I just played around with it but the quality is just too bad :(


Wendy

[Punkinsmom]

Yep, I just asked her. She said the original is somewhere in West VA with no chance of her getting a good copy. :cry:

What do you think about really blurring the background and messing with the contrast of her grandfather. I'm out of ideas other than that.

[Wendy]

Ummm ... well it certainly is worth a try.

Something else I tried was duplicating the layer setting it to multiply then nudging it over a pixel ... then doing it again ... and again.

When it got too dark ... I did a copy merged, duplicated that and set it to screen.

... but to be honesty it really doesn't improve it much :(



Wendy

[Pauline]

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1nx6yVQFbN1K4Z3J8joPAVvimxDeuQ0

Well this is the best that I could come up with. It's still pretty grainy and I don't think that you will be able to get rid of that unless you had a better scanned copy. I adjusted with levels, used remove noise, and also despeckle, and then changed it to the brownish colour, courtesy of this issue of the news letter. I think this person is out of luck unless they can get the person who has the photo to do a better scan and e-mail it to you full size. I would suggest they scan a couple copies and put the image on the scanner in different positions.

[Punkinsmom]

Thanks for your attempts. Sometimes people think you can pull a rabbit out of a hat without ever having a rabbit to put in the hat in the first place. You're all wonderful!

[Pauline]

Sherrie to tell you the truth, some times it's just plain fun to take on the challenge and see if I can do it. Not only is it a challenge, it's a learning opportunity.

Probably the only way to clean this picture up is to do it as a painting or something. It will never be a sharp photograph. Hmmmmmmm maybe it would be interesting to try and give it a go in my painter program if I have time. I'm not so good with that program, but again........practice is the only thing to help that!