Subject: Re: Some advice :)
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 08:23:26 -0000
From: "Michael Quick" <mike@mquick.freeserve.co.uk

I thought a few words on improving magazine scans might be appreciated! Attached are two mag scans.   One has been 'dreamed' which can make a poor or plain scan look a lot better! The original method only applied to Photoshop but I adapted it to work with PSP v6 a little while ago.   More clumsy in PSP than PS but it leads to all sorts of different uses. Here goes : ... 1. load your image into PSP 2. click  'colors channel splitting split to RGB' 3. this gives you 3 new windows. 4. click on the BLUE window, then apply the despeckle filter 3 times in succession 5. click the RED window and apply despeckle ONCE 6. click the GREEN window and apply despeckle ONCE 7. click 'colors channel combining combine from RGB', click OK 8. this combines the three windows back into one single image with a new name. 9. you can throw away the earlier windows (the red, green and blue, plus the original image) - just keep the new window. 10. duplicate the single layer (in the new image) by right clicking the background layer and click 'duplicate' 11. switch to the new layer 12. apply a Gaussian Blur of 5 (very very blurred!) 13. set the layer mode to 'darken' (far right side of the layer palette dialog box) 14. set the opacity to 40% using the horizontal slider on the right side of the layer palette dialog box 15. now duplicate this new layer (not the original background layer) 16. switch to the new layer and set the layer mode to 'lighten' 17.set the opacity to 60% 18. merge all the layers (right click the layer names and select 'merge all (flatten)') 19. Done!! This will result in a picture similar to the Dream caps I've posted recently.  Very smooth and dream like.   If you want a sharper cap, then reduce the Gaussian Blur to say 2 (instead of 5), and reduce the opacity %'s to let more of the background layer show through. You can still improve the image further by playing around with the brightness and contrast settings, and perhaps running the sharpen filter once.

All my screencaps with an 'e' at the end of the filename have had this method used on them.   The 'e' stands for Eric!   Eric very kindly passed this method onto me a long time ago and is happy for me to repeat the method to others. It really helps a poor image! Here's the comment I made when posting the attached plain scan (X & G mq 2005) : I scanned the pic and had a go at it myself. I wouldn't normally post the same pic as someone else has just posted, but this seemed to be a bit of the blind leading the blind! <g  I'm posting two versions.   This is the first, and is a 'normal' scan. Scanned at 300dpi and pasted into PhotoShop. First I reduced the height to 1000 pixels high, then I applied a Gaussian Blur of 0.4 followed by using the Curve command to lighten the light areas slightly and darken the dark areas, then I masked all the flesh areas and adjusted the saturation to reduce the 'orange' colour in the flesh a little. Result saved in Paint Shop Pro at a jpg setting of 8 and posted here. No curves command in PSP 6 (I think), maybe PSP 7 has it.   You could use contrast to partly simulate the effect.   Curves enables you to alter individually all 256 levels of brightness - thus you can make the dark areas darker and the light ares brighter without affecting any other part of the image. Complicated, I don't use it much but apparently it's the single most powerful image adjusting command available, all the experts use it!

Subject: Re: OT - Ben Hur / Dreamcap methods
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 19:49:31 GMT
From: "Michael Quick" <mike@mquick.freeserve.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc

First here's a direct copy of Eric's email to me with the Photoshop method of 'dreaming' a cap : ... "I've a 'quick and dirty' method maybe useful to you, too. Firstly I'm reducing the noise a bit. I think that was covered by the Adobe tutorial I had sent you a while ago. Switch to the individual RGB channels and use 'despeckle'. Mostly 2-3 times on Blue Channel and 1 time on Red and Green Channel. The next steps are the same on every pic so I made an action out of it.

- Duplicate layer   On the new layer:   - Gaussian Blur 5   - Set layer mode to 'Darken'   - Set opacity to 40%   - Duplicate that layer   On the new layer:   - Set layer mode to 'Lighten'   - Set opacity to 60% - Add masks to the two new layers Now with the brush set 30ish I quickly go over the eyes and lips areas on both new layer masks."

Subject: Re: Sample cap 3 of 6
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 05:44:53 GMT
From: "AresScans" <AresScans@att.net>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc

Here's what I did, bear with me its a little long. 1. Cloned out some of the imperfections and made the background a uniform gray. 2. Adjusted levels until the light and dark areas appeared to balanced. 3. Next, I resampled the image size to 640 x 480 at 300 ppi 4. Deinterlaced 5. Resized to 1600 x 1200 6. Next, I used a variation on Lasse's method for correcting caps.  It's basically the same except where Lasse uses Gaussian blur I've substituted the Edgarian blur technique that was posted here awhile ago. 7. Flattened the image, coverted it to lab mode used the unsharp filter (amount 150%, radius 1 pixel, threshold 10) on the lightness channel, convert the image back to RBG mode. 8. The image was still a bit grainy so I repeated steps 6 and 7. 9. Resized to 800 x 600

10. Adjusted levels again. 11. Selected the gray background, feathered the selection by 5 pixels, changed the color of the background by adjusting the blue channel in curves window. 12. Cropped the border and saved. Below are a couple of posts that explain the Lasse and Edgarian methods [following -ed.].  Hope this helps.  Ares

From: Lasse <kagen@worldonline.dk.spam-away>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 6:12 AM
Subject: Touching Up - In 5 easy steps...

...In just 5 minutes a day, you can achieve the results you've always wanted! For just $99.95! Operators are standing by to accept your call... <g> Anyway.... Here's a description of how I did that cap... Now, this is no miracle cure for every bad cap out there. The trick, if you can call it that, is that this cap was actually pretty good. Good colors and definition and probably most important, it had good sharpness too. The only thing really wrong with it was the noise pattern... Here goes... Start with your favorite crappy cap and duplicate it to four layers. (1) Select the bottom layer and use Filters/Blur/Gaussian Blur and find a good setting. It should get rid of the ugly pattern, but not the entire face. 8^)  For this I used a raduis of 5. Next, use Filters/Noise/Add Noise to get rid of that 'blurry' look. I used uniform monochromatic noise with an amount of 5. (2) Select the next layer and choose Filters/Stylize/Glowing Edges. I used Width 4, Brightness 10 and Smoothness 5. After that, choose Image/Adjust/Desaturate to well... desaturate it... Meet your new (soon to be) layer mask. 8^) (3)

Duplicate one of the channels in the layer (by switching to the channels palette and right-clicking on the channel). Select Select/Load Selection and choose the channel you just created. Now you have your (soon to be) mask loaded as a selection. (for some reason you can't do this without duplicating the channel, don't ask me why...) Now select the 3rd (and so far untouched) layer in the image and select Layer/Add Layer Mask/Reveal Selection (or hit the Add Layer Mask button in the Layers window). (4) Now, if you reveal only the blurred and the masked layer you can see that we're getting there, but the transition between the 2 layers is still too obvious. So select the mask of the masked layer and apply a little Gaussian Blur to it. I used a radius of 3. Now the 2 layers blend smoothly with each other... (5) Now hide/reveal the topmost untouched layer a few times to really see the difference... Flatten the image and enjoy... Pretty easy, huh? 8^) Next up, Hubbe will give lesson #1 of his new "Crap-To-Cap® - Aiming for perfection" course... 8^)

From: JasonL <eatyourwords@unilateralspamtaskforce.nospamzone>
Subject: Effects Cap - Edgarian Blur
Date: Monday, March 19, 2001 5:54 AM

Lasse's repost on touching up caps reminded me I've been meaning to post about an alternative to Gaussian Blur.  Starman mentioned being not that keen on Gaussian Blur, and I came across a magazine article awhile back that describes a physiological basis for why Gaussian Blurs are hard to look at.  Suffice it to say, the scientific reasoning of it all went over my head, but the author made use of this information to create another technique that looks better.  For comparison, I've included a fairly noisy raw cap of mine below: one unaltered, one with a fairly mild Gaussian Blur, and one with an Edgarian Blur.  (Hopefully the cap isn't too dark.)  I don't know of any way to adjust the strength of an Edgarian Blur (other than simply layering it back over the original and lowering its transparency), but the rest of the method Lasse describes can subsequently be applied according to personal preference. The technique appeared in the January issue of PEI Magazine.  The article's author is Albert Edgar, Ph.D. (hence the name).

The steps are simple: Gaussian Blur: Radius 1 Fade: 50% Gaussian Blur: Radius 2 Fade: 33% Gaussian Blur: Radius 4 Fade: 25% Gaussian Blur: Radius 8 Fade: 20% Gaussian Blur: Radius 16 Fade: 17% Gaussian Blur: Radius 32 Fade: 14%

 

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