redhed

Hi guys, it's been a while since I used this forum. But if anyone knows how it's done it's in this forum.
I have just aquired a copy of my great grandmother, unfortunatly it came from a newspaper or a magazine. However I would like to remove the halftoning and then later colorize it. The latter should be no problem as I've done tht before, but those pesky halftones have me stumped. I have tried using gaussian blur and unsharp mask but it looks a bit iffy if you know what I mean.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreaciated[/img]

Blinky2004

Aaaaah, sorry Ants... but that's just a hair-pulling session waiting to happen. You can 'hide' them to some degree, but removing them to any satisfactory level will be a fruitless endevour indeed.

Sorry. \:]

MsOz

You can have some success with a little effort and a plug-in called the Scanwizard Descreen filter.

Check out the results here.
At the very simplest, scanning at a very high resolution may help minimize the halftone somewhat.
Here is a little better explanation.
Good Luck!

redhed

Well I guess I will have to settle for a smaller picture size. After reading the artices you pointed out,basicly what their saying is scan the picture at the highest resolution possible than decrease the image size. I gave it a fly and it kind of works.
When You see the total picture it should make a half decent picture.

Blinky2004

Actually ya i was gonna mention the rescaling technique. Must've fell asleep on that.

It looks better though now ants. You should have no trouble colourizing it and that should help a little more to remove what little traces of the pattern are still visible.

It now would be easier to remove any further pattern using the "dupe layer, gBlur/Median, repair Mask" technique. It's outlined here.

redhed

Thanks for the link to your tutorial. I'll get stuck into that tomorow, And post the result when I finish. I have learnt a new trick by going through this exercise. That's a positive outcome. [righton]

redhed

Ok, here's a quick and dirty before and after. I'll have to go over your tutorial again as my layer masing skill is a bit rusty. But I pulled Gare's book down of the shelf and I'm boning up on the subject.

Blinky2004

Hey that's no so bad altogether Ants.
Go ahead and bone-up on Masks and run through it again. You're almost there.

TIP: keep a close eye on the colour tints used. Don't make them too exaggerated. Remember to keep them a little less saturated than you'd normally see on your computer monitor.

Bacardi

It's an enormous job, I know, but I would first scan it far too large, then zoom in untill I saw the pixels, select a white one, then select similar, grow the selection two pixels or so and try Gaussian Blur on that. Then, I would apply a scale down and finally sharpen (always sharpen at the very end of what you do)
I know, this is a trick to get rid of dead area's, but it might work better than simply blurring the whole pic.

Welles

That's a great idea, Erik. I've been following this thread because I didn't have the slightest idea how to accomplish what Ants (that last colorization is getting there!) is trying to do and was interested in the solution.