I need help with An Image

WolfOnDigital · December 7, 2009

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Hi to all the Photoshop Gurus.

I need help with the above image please. FEEDBACK please.
I am not looking for artisitic feedback. I am looking for Technical feedback.
We do not want to keep this image like it is.
We need to improve it.
I have tried many things in Photoshop and it did not really help that much.

My Girfriends Dad recently passed away and she is doing a tribute to him and his life in a book form. This is a family project.
He was a Pilot and he flew all over the world.

The image is a scanned image and I have tried to improve it with little success.

I am trying to do the following:

Clean the image up quality wise.
Also the background white is way too harsh. Bring it down.
Make this either a screened or Watermark look without the watermark.
Maybe Sepia Tone it to give it a mood to soften the harshness of it.
This will be used on a Book Cover in a 8 x 11 1/2 format full bleed.

I am not an expert in Photshop and need your help.

Any and all help and suggestions are appreciated.
Feel free to manipulate the image in any way you see fit.
You can give me feedback here or at:
WolfOnDigital@aol.com

Thanks in advance!

Jeff

eL eSs Vee · December 7, 2009

Don't change it at all. The best way to keep his memory intact is to leave the image alone. Just scan it to match the original as best you can and use it in its original state.

WolfOnDigital · December 7, 2009

I appreciate that but...

eL eSs Vee wrote:

Don't change it at all. The best way to keep his memory intact is to leave the image alone. Just scan it to match the original as best you can and use it in its original state.

I appreciate your answer but that would not be an option.
Besides inside the book are dozens of images of Him that preserve his memory.

I really need to fix the image and would really appreciate the help in doing so.
The family has already decided that keeping the image in it's original state is not the way they want to go.
So with that in mind do you have any suggestions on how to accomplish what I am trying to do?

Thanks!

Jeff

Grampa Doug · December 7, 2009

Start with Noise Reduction. Then use one of the many ways to increase to contrast (try Curves).

WolfOnDigital · December 8, 2009

thats a start...

Grampa Doug wrote:

Start with Noise Reduction. Then use one of the many ways to increase to contrast (try Curves).

Thanks, anyone else please?

ziggy53 · December 8, 2009

To put it simply, this image does not have enough quality for an 8" x 11.5" cover. You could probably give it to an artist and have an artistic rendering done of the image that would be suitable and appropriate. (This would be especially true if you have other similar images from which the artist could use components for inspiration.)

If the original print is 8" x 11.5" and looks much better, try using a professional lab for scanning.

pathfinder · December 8, 2009

The image of this young pilot is quite attractive, and I can appreciate your families desire to remember the gentleman this way. Making this image significantly larger, however, may not result in the quality of image you are wanting for your book cover, especially with the file displayed in your post above.

Wolf, how large was the original image? Was this scan from a 4x 6in or less snapshot, or an 8x 10 in print? Can you make the original full size file available?

The image you have posted above is out of focus, has a low contrast range, and I suspect will not hold up as well as expected, at an 8 x 11 inch size. A sepia tone of some type might seem appropriate for some WWII images. The vignette could be made stronger.

Trying to make this image better, may defeat some of its intrinsic value... Its soft quality, slightly out of focus, the defects in the print and the background, are part of what makes this image appealing I suspect. It reinforces that this is an item from history, not a photo shot recently. Many of the attempts to create images from WWII suffer from being "too good"

I have snapshots of my father from WWII. They are not art, but they mean a lot to me as they are memories of my father. The emotion they recall is what matters, not the image per se for me.

Ziggy's suggestion of an artistic rendering might offer a good solution. You might try some of the artistic renderings available in PS, along with a filter to capture lines of contrast, and then blend these back into the original image, to create an image that is no longer a photograph, so the eye does not expect the detail of a photo. I do this once in a while for an out of focus image.

I opened you image you posted here on dgrin 600 x 464 pixels to work with - way too low for an 8x11 photograph that needs more like 2400 x 3300 pixels

I duplicated the image after opening in PS with ctrl-J and converted the image to sRGB ( It was uploaded in grayscale )

I adjusted the Curves to darken the lower quarter tones, by pulling the left hand side of the curve down to the edge of the displayed histogram

ctrl alt shift E to create a new layer of all the previous layer and tan Noiseware on it to decrease the noise. You could use the denoiser of your preference.

merge down and duplicate again.

posterize edges with the Filter > Poster Edges command

soft light blending mode to taste

High pass filter to sharpen with a soft light blending mode again.

Sepia tone by Image >Adjustment > B&W > click on the tint box for sepia tone

Elliptical Marquee tool, invert, Brightness/ Contrast for vignette in Multiply blending mode.

And I get this - darker surround, sepia, but still muddy and not sharp enough to carry 8 x 11.

I think you need a better scan to start with as Ziggy suggested.

Jonnyyaya · December 8, 2009

You can only do a little to a image so it does not lose its original state of the vintage look..
Good Luck

r9jackson · December 8, 2009

Hi to all the Photoshop Gurus.

I need help with the above image please. FEEDBACK please.
I am not looking for artisitic feedback. I am looking for Technical feedback.
We do not want to keep this image like it is.
We need to improve it.
I have tried many things in Photoshop and it did not really help that much.

My Girfriends Dad recently passed away and she is doing a tribute to him and his life in a book form. This is a family project.
He was a Pilot and he flew all over the world.

The image is a scanned image and I have tried to improve it with little success.

I am trying to do the following:

Clean the image up quality wise.
Also the background white is way too harsh. Bring it down.
Make this either a screened or Watermark look without the watermark.
Maybe Sepia Tone it to give it a mood to soften the harshness of it.
This will be used on a Book Cover in a 8 x 11 1/2 format full bleed.

I am not an expert in Photshop and need your help.

Any and all help and suggestions are appreciated.
Feel free to manipulate the image in any way you see fit.
You can give me feedback here or at:
WolfOnDigital@aol.com

Thanks in advance!

Jeff

I sent you an email, but it would be really hard to explain all the steps needed to restore such an old photo. I guess it would depend on whether you want someone to work on the image or to give you instructions on how to do it.

WolfOnDigital · December 9, 2009

Size

pathfinder wrote:

Wolf, how large was the original image? Was this scan from a 4x 6in or less snapshot, or an 8x 10 in print? Can you make the original full size file available?
.

The scan was from Kodak Safety Film 6057 Film Stock and that wasn't Even scanned fully. It was only part of the negative it was scanned from!
Talk about being behind the 8 ball to start with.

WolfOnDigital · December 9, 2009

ziggy53 wrote:

To put it simply, this image does not have enough quality for an 8" x 11.5" cover. You could probably give it to an artist and have an artistic rendering done of the image that would be suitable and appropriate. (This would be especially true if you have other similar images from which the artist could use components for inspiration.)

If the original print is 8" x 11.5" and looks much better, try using a professional lab for scanning.

Ziggy,

How can I post the original full scanned size image here? I sent the image but I could only send a 46kb size? The full scan I have is over 3.5mb.

Jeff

ziggy53 · December 9, 2009

WolfOnDigital wrote:

Ziggy,

How can I post the original full scanned size image here? I sent the image but I could only send a 46kb size? The full scan I have is over 3.5mb.

Jeff

Hi Jeff, I gather you have a Smugmug account. If you copy the file to a gallery which allows full sized (Original) files then you can just provide us with the link. Even at the size you posted it does not look like the image is in focus. If the original negative is sharp, then it needs to be re-scanned.

Ideally, you need a dedicated film scanner and, you should scan at around 3000 - 3600 dpi or so for a small original. You should be able to achieve files much larger than 3.5MB. For an 8" x 11.5" print you might need around 2400 x 3450 finished pixel dimensions (allowing for up to a 150 dpi screen.) To achieve those dimensions from a 3-color scan you might need approximately 3-4 times as much to realize the smoothest grayscale tones. This would mean a starting (negative) high quality image of at least .8" x 1.15", but preferably around 1.6" x 2.3". Larger is better but those are the minimum I would attempt (if I calculated correctly, of course.)

Kodak Safety Film 6057 is just Kodak Plus-X Pan film. What size is the film and approximately what size is this portrait within the entire image?

WolfOnDigital · December 10, 2009

Answers for you
The negative is 2 1/4 x 2 1/4
The image of My Father In Law is only about 40% of the actual negative.
It looks as if this was a photograph taken of a larger photo.
(Photo layed on a table and then photographed to produce this negative.)

ziggy53 wrote:

Hi Jeff, I gather you have a Smugmug account. If you copy the file to a gallery which allows full sized (Original) files then you can just provide us with the link. Even at the size you posted it does not look like the image is in focus. If the original negative is sharp, then it needs to be re-scanned.

Ideally, you need a dedicated film scanner and, you should scan at around 3000 - 3600 dpi or so for a small original. You should be able to achieve files much larger than 3.5MB. For an 8" x 11.5" print you might need around 2400 x 3450 finished pixel dimensions (allowing for up to a 150 dpi screen.) To achieve those dimensions from a 3-color scan you might need approximately 3-4 times as much to realize the smoothest grayscale tones. This would mean a starting (negative) high quality image of at least .8" x 1.15", but preferably around 1.6" x 2.3". Larger is better but those are the minimum I would attempt (if I calculated correctly, of course.)

Kodak Safety Film 6057 is just Kodak Plus-X Pan film. What size is the film and approximately what size is this portrait within the entire image?

pathfinder · December 10, 2009

With a 2 1/4 Sq negative, you might get an acceptable result with a recent, good quality flatbed scanner ( IF the original negative is of high quality - scanning won't impart what is not there in the negative of course )

I suspect an Epson V700 or better would be adequate. Be aware B&W negatives can be harder to scan as they don't take well to ICE software to reduce the grain like with color slides. The person doing the scanning will need some knowledge regarding capturing good quality scans and editing them in Photoshop. None of these tasks will be optimal if done by automation.

If you have a sharp negative image, rescanning it might be worth while. If the negative is not sharp, well then reshooting the original image might be necessary.

WolfOnDigital · December 10, 2009

Ziggy, Just to make sure...
Ziggy,

This is the available settings on my scanner: (Epson Perfection 4490 Photo)

Document Type?
Refelective or Film

Image Type:
48 Bit Color, 24 Bit Color, Color Smoothing, 16 Bit Grayscale, 8 Bit GrayScale, Black & White

Resolution:
50 - 12800

Given these options what would you reccommend my settings to be for the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 negative?

Jeff

ziggy53 wrote:

Hi Jeff, I gather you have a Smugmug account. If you copy the file to a gallery which allows full sized (Original) files then you can just provide us with the link. Even at the size you posted it does not look like the image is in focus. If the original negative is sharp, then it needs to be re-scanned.

Ideally, you need a dedicated film scanner and, you should scan at around 3000 - 3600 dpi or so for a small original. You should be able to achieve files much larger than 3.5MB. For an 8" x 11.5" print you might need around 2400 x 3450 finished pixel dimensions (allowing for up to a 150 dpi screen.) To achieve those dimensions from a 3-color scan you might need approximately 3-4 times as much to realize the smoothest grayscale tones. This would mean a starting (negative) high quality image of at least .8" x 1.15", but preferably around 1.6" x 2.3". Larger is better but those are the minimum I would attempt (if I calculated correctly, of course.)

Kodak Safety Film 6057 is just Kodak Plus-X Pan film. What size is the film and approximately what size is this portrait within the entire image?

pathfinder · December 10, 2009

WolfOnDigital wrote:

Ziggy,

This is the available settings on my scanner: (Epson Perfection 4490 Photo)

Document Type?
Refelective or Film

Image Type:
48 Bit Color, 24 Bit Color, Color Smoothing, 16 Bit Grayscale, 8 Bit GrayScale, Black & White

Resolution:
50 - 12800

Given these options what would you reccommend my settings to be for the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 negative?

Jeff

Film - negative if this choice is available

16 bit grayscale if the film is originally B&W. If color negative film, then color negative

Resolution - highest available

WolfOnDigital · December 10, 2009

Thanks
Thanks.

pathfinder wrote:

Film - negative if this choice is available

16 bit grayscale if the film is originally B&W. If color negative film, then color negative

Resolution - highest available

WolfOnDigital · December 10, 2009

Another question
So scanning at 12,800 is NOT interpolated scanning?
I thought that resolution should not be used because it is not scanner resolution but software interpolation?
Given the choice between 3200, 4800, 9600, 12,800 you are saying I SHOULD scan at 12,800?

pathfinder wrote:

Film - negative if this choice is available

16 bit grayscale if the film is originally B&W. If color negative film, then color negative

Resolution - highest available

pathfinder · December 10, 2009

I would scan at the highest native resolution the scanner is capable of - that is a measure of real data, not created data by interpolation as you mentioned.

My Epson V700 supports 4800 dpi ( at least that is the highest offered in my VueScan software's dialogue box ), not sure about yours but I'll bet it is close. Certainly at least 2400. 12800 is an interpolated file I suspect. Film scanners do not support that sort of resolution directly.

If you have a 1 inch by 1 inch image, 4800 x4800 = 23,040,000 pixels. That ought to do. Or 4800 pixels on a side / 300 ppi = should be adequate for a 16 inch x 16 inch print. More than enough for your 8 x 11 inch print.

WolfOnDigital · December 10, 2009

Thank you
I figured that 4800 would be adequate for our purposes. Thank you all for your help so far!

Jeff

pathfinder wrote:

I would scan at the highest native resolution the scanner is capable of - that is a measure of real data, not created data by interpolation as you mentioned.

My Epson V700 supports 4800 dpi ( at least that is the highest offered in my VueScan software's dialogue box ), not sure about yours but I'll bet it is close. Certainly at least 2400. 12800 is an interpolated file I suspect. Film scanners do not support that sort of resolution directly.

If you have a 1 inch by 1 inch image, 4800 x4800 = 23,040,000 pixels. That ought to do. Or 4800 pixels on a side / 300 ppi = should be adequate for a 16 inch x 16 inch print. More than enough for your 8 x 11 inch print.

I need help with An Image

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