Making big prints out of old postcards

[demonada]

Hi there people, obvioustly i'm pretty much a newbie who tried to scan an old postcard of a cityscape (dating from 1900) in order to print it as big as 50x50cm. Of course i failed to get a decent poster out of it.
This is the result http://demonada.deviantart.com/art/cta-264194140
Does anyone know how what should i do to finnally get a big resolution image out of a 9x7 print?

[Tony W]

Difficult to say without seeing the original but your result looks ok taking into account the fact that it is an old postcard which looks to be stipple painted. What particular aspects look poor in the enlarged version and what specifically do you want to try and improve on.

Only thing I can think of at this time if you have not already is to scan at the highest dpi your scanner supports

[demonada]

First of all..thanks so much for the reply.

It's a scan of a regular small..old.. postcard which people used to send to each other in 1900. i think its called a "lithography". (like this one http://images7.okr.ro/auctions.v3/70...51-700_700.jpg - as size)
When enlarged the image is poor and it looks noisy. I know it should take a lot of postprocessing..im just wondering if this processing reffers to painting on top of it. is there any tutorial of some sort?

I DID scan it at the highest resolution supported, but the dots only get bigger (duh). Do i need some uber special scanner?

[Tony W]

Scanner type unlikely to make much difference. You may be able to soften the noise to a satisfactory level using a blur filter but you should also expect to mask the blur to certain areas of smooth tone e.g sky etc.

Example of blurring the image using Noiseware (film grain) on a new layer. You would probably want to add a layer mask to paint out the areas where you require more detail i.e. reveal the detail present in the original scan.

Hope this of some help

[demonada]

I tried to "ungrain" it using NeatImage, but it looks like plastic.
I will try it the way u said.

Thanks a bunch ^_^

[0lBaldy]

Have you tried putting your plastic looking layer over the original and changing the mode to darken then adjust the opacity down to around 60% more or less

[demonada]

That's an interesting solution. Thank you, 0lBaldy.
I'm still hoping to find someone who actually did this kind of stuff..like huge ad banners out of vintage postcards. We actually had a campaign in Bucharest with huge outdoor prints of the old town.
That's so pro and i'm such a noob :<

[Wolfman]

Not sure how well this would work, but how about photographing the cards with a high resolution digital camera and printing large off the file?

[demonada]

i think it's pretty much the same. It only enlargerges the ink dots.