freeware to enhance old documents.

[write person]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them really
do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on the document
and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the document, it washes out the
writing. When I darken the writing, it produces darker letters but makes it
harder to read as it also produces noise.

Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

Thanks.

 

[John Corliss]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them really
do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on the document
and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the document, it washes out the
writing. When I darken the writing, it produces darker letters but makes it
harder to read as it also produces noise.

Of course, (with apologies to the CSI television program) you can't get
information from where none exists in the first place. Have you tried
zoming in on the letters to see if they're recognizable in the first place?

Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

You can do this by lightening mid-tones and highlights, then darkening
shadows. Photofiltre can do this:

http://www.photofiltre.com

As for noise, try this program:

http://www.polaroid.com/service/software/poladsr/poladsr.html

--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls like Andy Mabbett, Doc (who uses sock puppets)
or Roger Johansson, for instance. No adware, cdware, commercial
software, crippleware, demoware, nagware, PROmotionware, shareware,
spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses or warez for me, please.

 

[john]

You have to darken the image (using brightness control) and then give it
contrast.

I have seen a function in some programs that have a threshold when
converting
grayscale images into 1 bit color images (black and white) that was
effective
in removing noise ans specs. I used this to remove trash from hand drawn
animation drawings. I used corel 9 to do this... but I have seen it
elseware.. perhaps GIMP has it? Im not sure.

There is one more option if the letters are in type and you want to preserve
the words (text).
There are OCR programs (optical character recognition) that transform an
image with text into an editable electronic text, for example a .DOC file.
Having the text in digital form means you can store them forever and
print them in various forms... search them etc.

Your scanner might have come with software that has OCR, if its HP then
most of the time it has it.

 

[Thorkild Dalsgaard]

"write person"wrote

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I have used IrfanView to view some old documents from 1699.

I used the
Image | Enhance colors
and adjusted on
Contrast,
Gamma
and Saturation
to enhance readability.

Also, IrfanView helped zooming in on details,
just mark a rectangular textpiece with the mouse,
and click in the middle.

Or to adjust zoom just press the numpad + or - key.

And for navigating between several documents scanned in same older,
the navigation keys are perfect.

Regards
Thorkild Dalsgaard

 

[Ivan Tisljar]

I have used IrfanView to view some old documents from 1699.

And I bet finding that old 5.25 floppy drive was a bitch, too.

),
Ivan.

--

"Ego autem quia veritatem dico non creditis mihi."

http://hlloyge.kickme.to/

-=delete _system_ to mail me=-

 

[spoon2001]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I
need is something that can eliminate the noise in a document and
enhance the writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them
really do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on
the document and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the
document, it washes out the writing. When I darken the writing, it
produces darker letters but makes it harder to read as it also
produces noise.
Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

Thanks.

Are you talking about scanned or photographed documents? If scanned, are
you scanning in black and white mode, or grayscale or color? The noise
you're talking about usually comes about when you're scanning in black and
white mode, and it varies according to the "threshold" level you set for the
black and white scan.

If you're scanning in black and white, you may try scanning grayscale images
of the documents. The files will be bigger but they won't have the noise.

 

[Duddits]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them really
do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on the document
and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the document, it washes out the
writing. When I darken the writing, it produces darker letters but makes it
harder to read as it also produces noise.

Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

Thanks.

Try PhotoFiltre's "Reinforce" and//or "Dust Reduction" filters. A
combination of these along with contrast adjustment works pretty well for
me.
http://www.photofiltre.com/

regards

Dud

 

[Sietse Fliege]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I
need is something that can eliminate the noise in a document and
enhance the writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them
really do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on
the document and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the
document, it washes out the writing. When I darken the writing, it
produces darker letters but makes it harder to read as it also
produces noise.

Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

Thanks.

"I/Bin is a program for intelligent conversion of grayscale raster
images to black & white images (e.g., binarization)."

http://www.egsolutions.com/downloads_en.htm
http://www.egsolutions.com/download/IBin10.zip

 

[Lefty Mills]

Some of the answers here are great.
Other answers can be found in this newsgroup -
soc.genealogy.computing

Lefty

 

[write person]

Thank you all for your suggestions.

The documents I work with are copies from microfilmed pages. Generally, the
copies are quite poor, so its not so much not being able to see the writing.
It's enhancing the writing and getting rid of the background junk that's my
aim. So far, the polaroid software seemed to get rid of some noise, which is
helpful.

I will definitely check out soc.genealogy.computing. I'm sure there is a
world of helpful information there.

I want to try PhotoFiltre's "Reinforce" and//or "Dust Reduction" filters. I
looked for those filters on http://www.photofiltre.com/. I couldn't find a
reinforce or dust reduction filter. Are they called by those names?

Once again, thank you all for the many responses and wonderful suggestions.

Nicki

 

[Duddits]

I want to try PhotoFiltre's "Reinforce" and//or "Dust Reduction" filters. I
looked for those filters on http://www.photofiltre.com/. I couldn't find a
reinforce or dust reduction filter. Are they called by those names?

They are already built in. Filter-->Sharpen-->Reinforce and
Filter-->Noise-->Dust Reduction. PhotoFiltre also has buttons for
these functions - just mouse over to find them.

regards

Dud

 

[Al Klein]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them really
do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on the document
and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the document, it washes out the
writing. When I darken the writing, it produces darker letters but makes it
harder to read as it also produces noise.

What you need to do is edge-enhancement first. I don't know of any
freeware product that does an exceptional job of that - and not many
expensive products that do. It takes a lot of horsepower (read
assembly language coding) to do a good job in real time, and there
aren't that many people left who are willing to put in the effort.

You could try a few tricks if all you want is readability, not making
the document look like the original - like solarizing it.

BTW, changing contrast and brightness DO tend to darken or lighten
everything, changing gamma won't do much unless you do it individually
on tiny pieces of the document, one at a time, and sharpening and
increasing noise are the same thing - you're sharpening the noise.

You need something that differentiates between "letter" and "not
letter", and edge recognition is the first step. Without that the
best way is almost pixel by pixel, by-hand, enhancement. When it
comes to graphics, the dumbest monkey is orders of magnitude more
brilliant (and a heck of a whole lot faster) than the best software.

 

[FirstName LastName]

I am researching my family's geneology. I was wondering if there is a
freeware program that can clean up copies of old documents. What I need is
something that can eliminate the noise in a document and enhance the
writing.

I've tried about all the freeware photo editors around. None of them really
do an adequate job. Their sharpen features make more noise on the document
and it actually looks worse. When I lighten the document, it washes out the
writing. When I darken the writing, it produces darker letters but makes it
harder to read as it also produces noise.

Is there something out there that can lighten the page and darken the
script?

Thanks.

http://auricle.dyndns.org/ALE/
Anti-Lamenessing Engine (ALE)

See the examples:
http://auricle.dyndns.org/ALE/gallery-auto/
2D Gallery

AND

http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/index.html
GREYCstoration

see the examples
http://www.greyc.ensicaen.fr/~dtschump/greycstoration/demonstration.html
Demonstration