Restoring Old Books & Magazines

[handrawn]

Hi

thanks for posting the example

to be honest if you have a lot of this sort of work to do then it would be worth looking at photoshop elements [trial version available - though there is a problem downloading from adobe I believe until July 1st]

one click in one of the affected areas with magic eraser ['contiguous' setting unticked] will turn all the affected areas transparent both with within and without of the letters - then a second click with the paint bucket tool [also 'contiguous' unticked plus foreground setting white] in one of the transparent areas will turn all of them white

if the areas of coloration vary significantly - it will be that much more work, whichever way you end up doing it - still worth looking at photoshop elements I would have thought, just end up doing more passes whichever program you use

David has covered the equivalent in PSP

it would be worth looking at the scanner settings too if there is more of this work to do

[David O'Neil]

Even if the inside colors vary significantly, PSP can often do the job in one pass--it is simply a matter of finding an appropriate base color and tolerance.

[handrawn]

yes

but it can take time to do that

I tried it in PS/E with the 'contiguous' unticked and white foreground colour set, and rest of settings on default, and it just did it - four clicks job done - no faf

this is PSP forum - I am not saying do not use it - I am saying if there is loads to do, photoshop will likely be quicker in the long run

[handrawn]

just as a further example of what I mean - I stuck some rough and ready color variation in here - the only difference was that it needed four clicks with the magic eraser, still with same settings

[coffeemom]

Hi David,

Thank you so much. I'm going to try those today. I appreciate all the help.

[David O'Neil]

It isn't worth the cost of a new program. PSP works fine.

Ctrl-A, Selections->Modify->Select color range, pick black with a tolerance of 188, softness of 1, hit 'Delete', and you are done (as long as your background color is set to white). With your example, you still have to fill in the pixels you modified.

[handrawn]

good solution David

[David O'Neil]

good solution David

So again, *please* stop giving recommendations about things you don't know. It is obvious that you haven't extensively done this task in PSP, and you were recommending that coffeemom buy another program because *you* knew how to do it in that program. That is completely irresponsible--pretending to be an expert when you aren't.

If you insist on taking that approach, at least say it something like: "I haven't done much of this in PSP, but in PSE you can do it in such and such a manner quite easily..." Let them know what you know, so that they aren't tempted to spend money when they don't have to.

*Please!*

[handrawn]

that is not the point David

it would be quicker in photoshop - because you would not have to experiment with the settings - it would 'just do it'

[David O'Neil]

it would be quicker in photoshop - because you would not have to experiment with the settings...

You failed to mention that you need to play with the 'tolerance' in your PS solution, so your statement is incorrect. You have to mess with settings in both programs. And, as in PSE, once you have the appropriate settings in PSP, you don't have to enter them again until you come across a new challenge. And in PSP, you can save the setting--I don't believe you can do that in PSE (but I may be wrong).