Need help and advice to clean up this image

[ogee]

I purchased this “photo” through e-bay. It was suppose to be a print made from an old slide…judging from the pixels I think it was at most a scan of a slide, enlarged and then printed on coloured paper (the image I received is 9.8”x 4.6”). It was the image of the town that I wanted but I want to “clean it up” as much as possible. I’m seeking viewers advice as to the best way to proceed.

I have an old version of PhotoPaint, but sort of speak photoshop in the sense I can generally duplicate what people are doing in Photoshop in PhotoPaint.

This is just a straight scan of the paper version I received without any manipulation…all the stuff on the print is on the print.

Help and advice, especially of what to do first would be greatly appreciated.

[Juliana Ross]

I would start by de saturating the image and then doing a levels adjustment.
See how it looks from there.
I can't really pick out any detail of what needs to be "cleaned up"...could you post a crop of an area you are talking about?

[ogee]

Thanks Juliana
This is how it looks when it isn't reduced to post here (although it might be a bit exaggerated). Perhaps this is due to the way it was enlarged when it was printed and nothing can be done to improve it.

Should I attempt to adjust the tones with the scanner's software before I scan?

[cardmnal]

Welcome to RP ogee!!

I agree with Juliana that it is difficult to see what you want cleaned up on this photo, perhaps a bigger copy would be better. Your photo can be up to 800 px long.

Anyway,

First thing I did was desaturate the pic so i could work in gray scale.
I adjusted levels.
Sharpened some with unsharp mask.
Hue and saturation adjustment layer with the colorize box checked to turn it back to the sepia tone.
I adjust curves a bit on an adjustment layer to give it a little extra pop.

[Sean2]

Hello,

Two minutes in Ps CS. Hue and saturation balance followed by levels, highlight and middle arrow shift to right.

Left B/W so you can add H/S if desired

Clean as I could get it anyway

Sean

[Juliana Ross]

Ro has a jpeg clean up in the resources section

Resources --->Photoshop Files--->Photoshop Actions

I know you said you are using another program, but if you can jump onto someone else's workstation that has PS, you can clean up some of the Jpeg uglies.

Looks like they printed really low res file of the image. I get much better results of the Frontier at work here than what you got sent.
Slides usually produce rather nice prints ...was this maybe copywork?

[barry_uk]

This help best I could do was clarify a couple times then grey scale

[ogee]

Originally Posted by Juliana Ross

Ro has a jpeg clean up in the resources section

Resources --->Photoshop Files--->Photoshop Actions

I know you said you are using another program, but if you can jump onto someone else's workstation that has PS, you can clean up some of the Jpeg uglies.

Looks like they printed really low res file of the image. I get much better results of the Frontier at work here than what you got sent.
Slides usually produce rather nice prints ...was this maybe copywork?

I don't know what the process was...but I suspect that it wasn't done correctly or was a copy job. I collect images of this small town Hollisterville, PA as my family has a connection and I had never seen this one before.

[ogee]

Here is a larger version...thanks everyone for your attempts.

[Sean2]

hello Ogee,


Like the others, I am not rerally sure what you are seeking. Changed the Hue/Sat and once again to black and white. Selective sharpening of buildings and park area.

Removed some "spots".

Hope this is more helpful.

Sean

[philbach]

As mentioned by others a larger file would have helped some. I used Channel Mixer with emphasis on the green channel. Then levels and finally copied the layer and ran the high Pass filter with overlay blending mode to sharpen.

[ogee]

Thanks to all.

[CJ Swartz]

Here's another B/W version and a slightly "color-enhanced" one -- give you an idea of versions you might try if you want anything other than the original.