help trying to make something darker

[step88]

hi i just signed up,  im having some trouble trying to make something darker when using paint.net

 

i have attached a pic,  at the top is the original image, and below, is how it looks after i applied (5 times) effects-->photo-->sharpen (at the maximum amount '20')

 

it does certainly look better after applying the maximum sharpening amount 5 times, but i was just wondering if anyone has any ideas as to perhaps other better ways i could make that text more readable?  or do u think that is pretty much as good as i can expect?   thanks

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by step88

[Reptillian]

Try playing with effect->distort->morphology.

[HyReZ]

I take it that you want to make more than two lines of characters to make darker.

If I am wrong it may be better to use a Dot Matrix font and re-create those two lines.

If I am correct; it may be better to use OCR software to read your characters into a text document.
There is OCR capability in Microsoft One Note, which is free in Windows 10.

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by HyReZ

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Try this:

1. Select the region you want to enhance
2. Apply Effects > Noise > Median at the following settings

 

You can apply Median a second time (Ctrl + F)  if you want even more enhancement....

 

 

Applying an instance of Sharpen with a high setting after Median makes it pop a little more IMO.

 

Pretty cool yes?

 

BTW your image takes me back to the days I programmed Motorola 68000 just for fun! bne = branch if not equal. jmp = jump aka Goto!

 

 

[IHaveNoName]

Personally I'd take that other approach HyReZ suggsted - more tedious and no guarantee of success but I'd be looking to find an exact match for the font originally being used and redo the text, perhaps in bold for extra clarity.

 

That Dot Matrix font linked too seems to match some letters, like the lower case "j" but it does not match the numbers and clearly not the same font that was used. So you'll have some very tedious searching to do if you do need an exact match and there may well be no exact match if that is a custom font.

 

TBH I think that font and the Dot Matrix one are horrible and if the purpose is not critical I'd be looking for a similar font that is actually more attractive and more legible.

 

EDIT: I've just done a quick font search of several hundred free and commercial fonts and whilst there are dozens similar none is a perfect match. The best I found are not really any closer than  HyReZ's Dot Matrix suggestion.

 

The problem is the best match for letters are not even close for the numbers and that does raise the possibility the original font itself might be custom or simply two different fonts used for each purpose.

 

Edited December 11, 2019 by IHaveNoName

[Ego Eram Reputo]

OP wants to make the text more readable, not recreate it.

[IHaveNoName]

As said it does depend on what he is actually wanting to do this for - if for example he's trying to provide photographic proof of a Customs' label, invoice, payment ID etc, which is not easily legible in the picture he has, then he can, indeed must, not use a substitute font. That is a given.

 

But if this is non-critical then using a more legible font of the same type ie. LCD/LED/Dotted/Pixel, is a viable option.

[HyReZ]

22 hours ago, IHaveNoName said:

... it does depend on what he is actually wanting to do this for

That is the consideration.

My thinking was that the OP was either trying to resurrect a volume of code to possibly re-edit in a text editor, or make clear 16 characters that can achieved by simply installing a suitable Dot Matrix font.

I tried using the OCR capability of OneNote and several other OCR apps. None could satisfactorily read the character strings without producing too many errors for using it to produce text for editing purposes.

Edited December 13, 2019 by HyReZ

[step88]

hi guys sorry about the delay coming back to this thread,    first off thank you very much for the great suggestions

 

i certainly cant change the font unfortunately as i am helping someone who has scanned an old 6502 (close guess Ego Eram!) assembly language programming book -- there are over 400 pages he scanned so needless to say i wont be doing anything involving changing the font.  im just going to keep things sinple and as suggested here i have tried both the distort-morphology effect (erode) which seems to be just fine for this issue

and also thanks for the effects-noise median suggestion which also seems to be good

i will certainly use one of those above suggestions then

 

thanks again for the help

 

[ANONYMISS]

34 minutes ago, step88 said:

hi guys sorry about the delay coming back to this thread,    first off thank you very much for the great suggestions

 

i certainly cant change the font unfortunately as i am helping someone who has scanned an old 6502 (close guess Ego Eram!) assembly language programming book -- there are over 400 pages he scanned so needless to say i wont be doing anything involving changing the font.  im just going to keep things sinple and as suggested here i have tried both the distort-morphology effect (erode) which seems to be just fine for this issue

and also thanks for the effects-noise median suggestion which also seems to be good

i will certainly use one of those above suggestions then

 

thanks again for the help

 

Perhaps ScanTailor?