Old books digitized

[Frank Leith]

How to make old book photos look better.

I try to digitize all the old books I have. How do I let them look better.

So maybe better perspective and the text more b&w...

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Hi Frank,

Welcome to the forum!

To square the image, try the rotate zoom dialog ( can be found under the layers menu or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL SHIFT Z). For more on this, here's a link to the helpfile: http://www.getpaint....RotateZoom.html

To recolor, or adjust the coloring, there are quite a few options. Try looking under the adjustments menu: http://www.getpaint....tmentsMenu.html. Try the simpler Brightness / Contrast adjustments first. Remember the effect may be undone with CTRL Z if you don't like it. Curves, Hue / Saturation and the Levels adjustments are more complicated to use (and explain!) so check out the help files for those adjustments.

[Frank Leith]

To square the image, try the rotate zoom dialog ( can be found under the layers menu or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL SHIFT Z). For more on this, here's a link to the helpfile: http://www.getpaint....RotateZoom.html

To recolor, or adjust the coloring, there are quite a few options. Try looking under the adjustments menu: http://www.getpaint....tmentsMenu.html. Try the simpler Brightness / Contrast adjustments first. Remember the effect may be undone with CTRL Z if you don't like it. Curves, Hue / Saturation and the Levels adjustments are more complicated to use (and explain!) so check out the help files for those adjustments.

Hello Ego,

The rotate zoom dialog works perfect!!! Thank you verry much!

But making the text more easy to read seems to be more difficult.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

There really are a couple of techniques worth thinking about. Either you lighten the background page (a de-sepia in effect) to make the page lighter, or you make the text darker. The best result will probably be a combination of these two methods: making the lighter colors lighter, and the darker colors darker.

To keep you playing, try duplicating the layer :DuplicateLayer: and setting the blend mode of the top layer to Multiply (press F4 - select Multiply from the dropdown list). Adding a 'multiply' blend on a duplicate layer is a quick way of giving a bit of 'pop' to an image.

I'll have a look at other solutions later on today. (I'm not at a PC equipped with Paint.Net at the moment).

[Ego Eram Reputo]

I’ve played with this far too much!

I’m not really thrilled with the outcome, but here’s the best I have achieved:

1. Open image.

2. Duplicate the layer twice & ensure the top layer is selected.

3. Run the Alphaspace with White selected, slider @ 122.

4. Run Local Contrast Enhancement settings 77/21/50.

5. Run Sharpen+ settings 160/20/0.

6. Merge the top layer down to leave two layers.

7. Select the top layer of the two left.

8. Effects / Noise > Reduce Noise at defaults.

9. Run Color Balance+ settings -43/-9/23 Highlights & preserve luminosity selected.

10. Brightness/Contrast setting 0/-16

11. Select the bottom layer and move it up to the top position.

12. Press F4 & set blend mode to Screen, opacity to 120.

13. Merge down.