sharpening scanned documents

[DeutschRitter]

I have the following question: I need to scan my documents (e.g. credentials) for my job applications. I scanned my documents with a very good scanner, but some lines have different intensity of shade of grey and the lines have a different thickness (the lines are not shown correctly). I wanted to know if there is a plugin or an oportunity in paint.net to improve the quality of scanned documents (in black and white; not in colours).

[pdnnoob]

you could go to adjustments and mess with the brightness/contrast tool

or

you could go to "Effects:photo:sharpen" and plat with that

or

download the Sharpen+ plugin (anyone know where that link is?) and learn how to use it

EDIT: also, make sure you are zoomed to actual size on the scanned document. That may be why it looks weird. I imagine it is a large picture because it is a good scanner, so it's not all going to fit on your screen when zoomed to actual size, but zooming out to make it fit will distort it in the way you mentioned

Edited August 23, 2010 by pdnnoob

[Ego Eram Reputo]

What resolution did you scan at? 150dpi? 300dpi?

I'd recommend turning up the resolution on your scanner and try again. There is no substitute for as many pixels as you can get when scanning.

Try 600 dpi and see if there is a change in the quality of the final image. I'm betting there will be - though the file size will also be a great deal larger.

[az2000]

If it's saved as JPEG, maybe try indexed GIF or PNG.

JPEG always looks fuzzy to me when it's something with straight lines and solid colors. Like a screen shot of a desktop, or a scan of a diploma, or transcripts, vehicle registration.

Edited August 24, 2010 by az2000