Old Book Scan Question

by Mike
(Ashburn, VA)

Q: I have a family book cover from 1852 that I recently discovered as part of my genealogy research. I'd like to somehow filter this scanned image so that it brings out the written words from the background without painstakingly using something like a clone stamp tool to etch around the written words. I'm sure there is someone out there with a more creative way to do this than what I'm envisioning.

I am an Elements neophite, so take it easy on me. I have v6.

Mike


A: Thanks for the great question Mike.

I wish I could say "Just go up to the Seperate Text From Background under the Filter menu." Unfortunately no such filter exists. In fact this is one of the most challenging projects there are in Photoshop Elements, or even the full version of Photoshop.

Since the background of your document is so dark I would start with the Shadow/Highlight command. First duplicate your Background Layer and make sure your working on the duplicate layer.

Go under the Enhance menu and choose Adjust Lighting > Shadows/Highlights.

In the Dialog box that appears move the Lighten Shadows slider and the Midtone Contrast slider all the way to the right. Hit OK.

Then you need to continue teasing more contrast out of the scan. Try playing with the Levels sliders. Maybe the Brightness/Contrast command. Those are both found under the Enhance > Adjust Lighting where you went for Shadow/Highlight.

After you get as much contrast as you can get, then start your clean-up process. Besides the Clone Stamp tool you can try the Spot Healing brush to drag over some of the dark lines and click on the dark spots.

In addition to increasing contrast and cleaning up you might want to go under the Enhance menu to Adjust Color > Adjust Hue/Saturation to remove some of the yellowing. In that dialog window move the Saturation slider to the left to desaturate the color. Of course you might want to retain the color to keep the old feel to your document.

You have a very challenging task ahead. I wish I had an easy solution for you. Just go slow and you should be able to improve it quite a bit. I'm sure it will be a learning experience. Good luck!