bad quality magazine scan

[arura]

Hi,
This is my first post here.

As part of my Vietnam journal I have scanned a timetable from a magazine showing airline prices. The quality of the scanned picture is bad because of the magazine was not perfect from the start and also because I have a old scanner. I need help to retouch the image so it will look better?

http://www.arura.com/assets/imp_vn2002/vietair1.jpg


Thank you
Arura

[Guest]

What program are you using?

[arura]

I have adobe photoshop 7, but I am newbie.

Thank you
Arura

[Mike Needham]

Could you please post a picture of what you are working on, so that we may all have a look for you

The filesize must be under 100k ( I think )

[arura]

http://www.arura.com/assets/imp_vn2002/vietair1.jpg

[jeaniesa]

Hello Arura,

Welcome to RetouchPro!! I'm glad you found us. And I'm particularly happy to find another Viet Nam traveller here! (I've been many times and feel like it is my second home.)

Anyway, as to your question. I think some sharpening would help immensely. Also, I played around with some of the damage near the top for just a few minutes and I think most of it can be taken care of with careful cloning. I've attached a small sample of the before after that I got with a little cloning (very rough - needs some more work, but I was just testing to see if it WOULD work) and sharpening using the Unsharp Mask with settings of 170/0.7/12.

I can't wait to see your journal when you get it up!

Jeanie

[arura]

Hi Jeanie and the rest of the community at RetouchPro.com,

So many thanks for everything.
First of all for welcoming me to the board. I found a link to this board from another one, I think it was SitePoint.com.
I have visited RetouchPro several times to read tutorials and to see the results of retouch challenges. I was looking forward to have something to retouch and work with myself, but after I opened the picture in Adobe Photoshop 7 the program overwelmed me with it's many functions (combined with the bad quality of the picture).

Your instructions have helped me allot.

Jearnie, it is wonderfull that you also like to travel, especially to Vietnam. Travelling with my family, we'll arrive Vietnam June 28th. In 5 weeks, we'll try to cover the whole country from Chau Doc (in the South) to Sapa (in the North). I'll bring a digital camera Canon Powershot A40 so I can publish photos to the web.

I also want to bring my laptop so I can upload photo porfolios and comments while I travel. But I don't know how easy and safe it is to travel with a laptop in Vietnam, and how available and fast internet connection is in Vietnam.

I hope I'll not disappoint you with my bad quality photos and web site. I am newbie in both photography, photoshop and web design. I'll have to learn everything in short time. Lucky for me there is a board like this to ask for help when I feel stuck

Arura

[jeaniesa]

Arura,

I'm glad my instructions helped. Let me know if you try them and they don't make sense.

I started another thread over in Salon about traveling in Viet Nam so that we don't stray too far off topic in this thread.

Jeanie

[Mike Needham]

I am just itching to have a go at this for you and can't fault jeanies work. My initail take on this would be to use the colour range command or magic wand to select areas of the same brightness value. Promise I will work on this when I get time, as I reckon this is a little more difficult than first appears

[arura]

Hi,
the link is to the already improved version, following the instructions from Jeanie and used unsharp mask and the clone tool to repair the damage. I think compared to the first image, the new version looks great.
I still have the old first version with lots of damages though, so if you want to be challenged by the old image, I can post a link to that one too.
But I am sure my improved version still has a lot of work to be done on before you approve it for web publishing.
I look forward to see your "magical work" and the instructions on how transform the image to an even better version.

This is also a very enjoyable method to learn Photoshop.

Thank you
Arura

[jeaniesa]

Great job on the cloning Arura! You're a fast learner!
Jeanie

[arura]

Thank you for the encouragement. I just got very helpfull instructions. I feel that if I participate at the board, I'll learn faster.


Thank you

Arura

[Mig]

Arura,

Try this,

Open the pic in photoshop, change the mode to RGB by going to IMAGE>MODE>RGB

Run the filter Smart Blur with these approximate settings:

Radius: 50
Threshold: 70
Quality: High
Mode: Normal

Then save it via save for web or whatever way you're comfortable with.

check it out

Mig

[arura]

Hi all,

I have posted all versions of this picture at my forums if you are interested in the progression from start to the current version.

I am very happy with the current version. Thank you.

Arura

[jeaniesa]

That's great Arura!! I'm glad we could help. (And thanks for the link back here - that's really nice of you.)
Jeanie