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Cleaning and Sharpening a Photo?


Marilynx

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This one's a charity piece -- the lady who did therapy on my 17.5 year old Dachshund and made his last days much more comfortable is setting up her own business. Horse and Dog rescue and physical therapy.

 

She has some artwork which needs to be cleaned up so it can be used on flyers, t-shirts, etc. to raise money.

 

It started with a pencil sketch which someone turned into a banner for her, but didn't give her the art file from which it was done. Also apparently, didn't give the pencil sketch back.

 

I have a photograph, taken with a phone, of the banner.

 

Heartland02.jpg

 

Pulled it into PDN, and cleaned it up considerably with the Magic Wand, then put a plain red layer behind it.

 

Heartland_2015-12-01a.jpg

 

But there's still a whole slough of loose pixels here and there. And the white is not as crisp and clean as it should be, not to mention patches of gray in it, and serious pixelation in some of the smaller areas.

 

If I could find a free font which matched the one given, I'd just replace the lettering altogether. Did try a couple of font matchers, but none of their suggestions were even close.

 

Any suggestions for how I can make this look the best it can?

 

I'll also be turning this into a B&W for business cards and so forth.

 

What worries me is that in 300 dpi, this is a small picture, so enlarging it for posters and things is going to be tricky.

 

Any thoughts, suggestions, etc. for the best way to do this?

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The picture is out of focus and that makes it difficult to work with. If possible I would take another photo or use a scanner (if it is not too big).

 

The left side of the picture is sharper than the right side. So I would concentrate cleaning the left side and then flipping it to obtain the right side.

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The picture is out of focus and that makes it difficult to work with. If possible I would take another photo or use a scanner (if it is not too big).

 

The left side of the picture is sharper than the right side. So I would concentrate cleaning the left side and then flipping it to obtain the right side.

 

The banner is about four feet by five feet. Doesn't fit on my scanner. Sadly, this photo is the best of about a dozen photos. (Really wish we had the original artwork!)

 

I believe you're right about the sides... and I do not see a real difference between the left and right. So mirroring should work.

 

Any thoughts on de-pixelating the edges? Would anti-aliasing work? Or maybe Effects => Photo => Sharpen?

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I have a pretty straightforward solution.

 

1. Use your already edited project of this on PDN. (The one that you showed above)

2. Use Magic Wand to select the RED of the image and make sure that the Magic Wand's flood mode is set to Global.

3.CTRL+I to invert the selection. This would now the white lines of the drawing.

4. Add a new layer and make sure this new layer is selected. Fill your selection with white using Paint Bucket tool.

5. Use AA's Assistant under Effects>>Object>>AA's Assistant. This will reduce the jaggedness of the edges. You may tweak the settings right there and see what makes the best result.

6. Use a soft Eraser to erase the eye area where some details were lost.

7. If you're happy with the results, Flatten the image.

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What I would do is use the "Shape Maker plugin" the trace the shapes. You only need to make one for the dog and one for the horse (the other horse is the same only flipped in X axis). This will allow you to make the shapes in any size you want without quality loss.

Plane_Sig2.gif

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I have a pretty straightforward solution.

 

1. Use your already edited project of this on PDN. (The one that you showed above)

2. Use Magic Wand to select the RED of the image and make sure that the Magic Wand's flood mode is set to Global.

3.CTRL+I to invert the selection. This would now the white lines of the drawing.

4. Add a new layer and make sure this new layer is selected. Fill your selection with white using Paint Bucket tool.

5. Use AA's Assistant under Effects>>Object>>AA's Assistant. This will reduce the jaggedness of the edges. You may tweak the settings right there and see what makes the best result.

6. Use a soft Eraser to erase the eye area where some details were lost.

7. If you're happy with the results, Flatten the image.

 

That seems to give a decent result. I probably should go in and do some detail touch up on the wings. She did change the font, so I didn't have to do that -- Effects => Text Formations => Circle Text gave us a nice arc. <g> I admit, given the font she had before, I wouldn't have chosen this one, but she liked it, so....

 

Heartland_2015-12-02b.jpg

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What I would do is use the "Shape Maker plugin" the trace the shapes. You only need to make one for the dog and one for the horse (the other horse is the same only flipped in X axis). This will allow you to make the shapes in any size you want without quality loss.

 

Wow. Just read the thread on that plugin. More things to learn. More learning curve. Can we say Immelman? I thought we could....

 

The idea of going through and recreating both those shapes is mind-boggling, but if I can manage it, it would sure simplify a bunch of stuff when running this particular graphic for her charity applications. (My doing this is my donation to the Cause. I have seen what this lady has done for injured animals that vets said should be euthanized... and a few months later, were not only walking but playing.)

 

First I will get the static picture done. THEN I will see about trying this.

 

Wow.

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Well, thanks to layers, PDN, and etc., not to mention suggestions, this is what I finally ended up with.

 

I'm not sure I am quite ready to try something this complex in Shapemaker, so the fact that this is only 5" x 5" in 300 dpi may be an issue for larger applications. But at least we'll be starting with clean, un-pixelated copy.

 

Heartland_2015-12-04.jpg

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Here is your final image sharpened (sharpen +) and upscaled to 4096 x 4092 via "nnedi3" (the best upscaler that I know of)......

 

Deleted file. will post a better one...

Edited by racerx

Plane_Sig2.gif

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Here is your final image sharpened (sharpen +) and upscaled to 4096 x 4092 via "nnedi3" (the best upscaler that I know of)......

 

Wow! Thank you, Racerx! Having the bigger image will be great -- it's so much easier to reduce a size than to enlarge something.

 

And the dogs and horses who benefit from this lady's expertise will probably thank you, also!

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nnedi3 works in powers of 2. That means you can upscale 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, etc. The image I uploaded was 4x because of this forum size limitations. I can easily kick out an 8x or 16x if you'd like. An 8x upscale would result in an 8192 x 8184 image for example.

Plane_Sig2.gif

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nnedi3 works in powers of 2. That means you can upscale 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, etc. The image I uploaded was 4x because of this forum size limitations. I can easily kick out an 8x or 16x if you'd like. An 8x upscale would result in an 8192 x 8184 image for example.

 

I'll be seeing her on Wednesday and will ask what sizes she might need. That last would be around 27" at 300 dpi.

 

Of course, she may not know.... she knows horses and dogs, not graphics!

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