Removing jpg fuzz

[TL@ITS]

Hello,
I am trying to reduce the colors on a logo but there is too much 'fuzz' and it appears as separate pixels once the bitmap is converted to black and white.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...r/fuzzlogo.jpg
In the image (zoomed) you can see all the color shading that needs to be removed.
How do I remove 'fuzz' from a jpeg?
Thank you for any help you can provide.

[steve.ledger]

JPG Artifacts and mosquitos (fuzz) are common due to the typical compression/quality level applied.
In the case of your sample, my first response would be to plop the image into a pixel editing program such as PaintShopPro and use the paint-bucket fill tool with the tolerance level set approriately.
You can also paint them out manually with the brush tool, even Windows Paint has this, but likely to be a PITA.

I can't see the rest of your image, but one method which may give you nice B/W ( 2 colours) results is to use the Mehdi plugin 'Fine Threshold' - you can get it for free from the MEHDI home page.
Works well with XaraXtreme

[RTK]

Not having seen the original file... I would assume the "fuzz" are jpg compression artifacts that are enhanced by you converting to the file to black and white?

How did you convert the file to black and white in the first place? Were there any artifacts visible before you did your conversion?

Any chance you can post the original file?

There are many ways to get rid of "fuzz" depending on the original file. There are a lot of tools in bitmap editors. As for Xara's (in-the-box) tool - did you try using levels?

If the logo is simple - why not re-draw it in Xara?

Risto

[raynerj1]

If you did the original artwork... export it as a gif then you wont' get that "fuzz".

[Odat]

Possibly tweaking the contrast of the image a bit may lighten up some of the fuzz and make it vanish or at least be less apparent, if the fuzz is light colored. Though I'd say your best bet is to either get a hold of a copy of the image with better quality or use a fill tool like Sledger mentioned.

[The Alien]

The logo probably doesn't contain any photographic data but is entirely computer graphics. The .gif format (as John suggests) is a suitable format for this kind of images. If you want more than 256 colors, use the .png format. No point in using .jpg for these stuff

[steve.ledger]

Is he not likely working with an already exisiting image that he's "converting to black and white" as stated in the OP?
Yet what he's showing in his crop is actually greyscale.

He said he's trying to "reduce the colors on a logo" - I think if he was the creator he'd be actually creating a black and white logo in the first place rather than greyscaling an existing one?
What he's seeing is something that already exists yet more prominent as greyscale, he just wants to remove it.

The suggestions have been:

• Adjusting Levels
• Adjusting contrast
• Filling with white (adjusted tolerance)
• Fine threshold
• Manual editing (painting)

Some pixel editing software have 'denoise' and 'despeckle' filters built-in which can help reduce stray pixels too.

As The Alien says, logo graphics are better not saved as jpg as over-compression produces that 'fuzz'.
But this is something probably he only has as jpeg from another source (web/application/cd sample)

I agree with everyone that seeing a sample of the original image would be useful to us.

[The Alien]

Hi Steve,
Yes, I was wondering that too when posting my reply. Since he said the fuzz "appears as separate pixels once the bitmap is converted to black and white" I thought it wasn't there in the first place

If the fuzz is there in the original image, my personal preference would be to do manual editing using the clone tool. E.g. Paint.Net has that tool (freeware). Or redraw the logo in Xara if it's not too complicated.

[BobInce]

Yeah: from the snippet the logo looks fairly simple, so I'd definitely consider redrawing it in Xara, then you've got a nice vector version you can resize and reuse later if you need to.

The text is in Copperplate Gothic Bold, which is a commercial font but a very widespread one. I think it comes with MS Office, and you can probably find free knock-offs on the web with a quick Google.

[TL@ITS]

Wow -- thank you all for your very helpful response.

I don't have the original artwork (It's been lost in the ebbs of time, I've been told). What I'm working with is a greyscale.
It's a pretty simple logo so I think I'll just redo it.
This problem is actually one that comes up often. Customers will supply jpgs (and that's all they have), we need to print them in b/w, and get fuzzy results.

Thank you for all your suggestions.