-
Can this image be made crisp and clear (and usable)??
Hello,
I have some sheet music that was originally created in a software program but the project file has since disappeared. All I have now is the hardcopy book. The music notation itself does not need to be edited but the chord diagrams do. My hope was that I would be able to scan the hard copy pages in at 300dpi and just cut and paste the new diagrams (graphics generated in the program) in where necessary.The problem as you will see in the attachment below is that the white isn’t white and the black isn’t black. In addition, the edges are very fuzzy.
I was able to use the magic wand to select the white area and fill it with true white. Then I did an inverse select and filled all the black with solid black but it made it far too heavy/bold, and the edges were still fuzzy. Thats about the extent of my level of photoshop experience.
If someone here can either tell me 1) If it’s possible to make these scanned images usable for print and 2) either how to do it, or I’m happy to hire someone to do it as well.
Here is a sample scanned image:
-
6 Replies
-
It looks like the resolution of the scanner itself needs to be much higher. You have a very large crappy scan. The rough edges and lack of saturation are more the problem of the scan than the resulting png image. Photoshop can’t put things in that weren’t there in the first place without hours of hand retouching. Reset you scanner to the highest levels and try again.
Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org -
That’s just how the printout is, if you look very closely at the hardcopy, the edges are rough because it’s a photocopy, not an original print. I scanned it at 300DPI
-
Scan it in as grayscale (as it looks like you are doing), then in Photoshop try using Image > Adjustments > Threshold to get a black and white image. If you want you can bring this black and white image into Illustrator and run Live Trace on it to try and create a vector image out of it.
Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Here’s another quick and dirty trick that will give you excellent results.
It’s straight forward.1: Before starting to scan, rest the scanning software to the defaults, and turn off any sharpening settings if applicable.
2: Scan at 600 dpi in Grayscale.
3: Go to LEVELS, doubleclick the left of the 3 little eydropper tools (the white one)
and in the next window enter 3 for the K value in the CMYK sliders. click OK.
Now click on the background of the scanned piece, what should be white. You’ll notice the background probably going away for most of the part.4: Go to LEVELS and doubleclick the left eyedropper (black), and enter 97 for the K value in the CMYK sliders. Click ok.
Now click somewhere on the notes and they should turn almost black.It’s a god idea to have the info panel open so you can read what you are doing.
5: For fine tuning go to IMAGE…ADJUSTMENTS….BRIGHTNESS…CONTRAST.
Start by moving the contrast slider slowly to the right and watch as you approach 100 %; don’t let the image closing up (filling in) in the small white spaces.Then move the BRIGHTNESS slider slowly to the right, to open those areas back up. Once it looks good click OK. Double check with the eyedropper tool in several spots of the page that you are reading 100% Black and 0% in the background.
6: Last step is to go to IMAGE….BITMAP. Enter 1200 dpi and select Treshold 50% mode.
Hit ok, done.
During the last step you turned the grayscale image where white is pixel data as well as black, into a true bitmap where black is pixel and white is not (its transparent). So all the file data from the white pixels of the grayscale image was added to the black pixel data…..a totally natural up-sampling method, you doubled the resolution, so the image should turn out nice and crisp.Hope that helps.
cheers,Adi
-
Thanks Adi. I’m going to save that method to my helpful tips folder for those times when you absolutely have to have it and it looks nasty. Scanners are wonderful things and we don’t get to spend enough time experimenting and learning all they can do.
Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org -
You are very welcome, Del !
And yes, I agree; sometimes it takes some deeper digging and more time to figure things out.
In my opinion this is the best way to learn- by trial and error, but always keep experimenting.
cheers,
Adi
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up