fixing jpgs

[jones]

Been helping out a friend with old photos. Fixing them up a bit from tears
etc.

Trouble is he received them as jpgs and can't get the originals to scan them
in for me as a better format like BMPs.

Am I flogging a dead horse here, working with jpgs and returning them as
jpgs?

When I get them I save as BMPs a copy to work with. When I have finished I
keep the BMP for me, and send him back the jpgs as it is better for him
(smaller file).

I have Photo Optimizer, but I have noticed on other photos that it leaves
the words like ........... . com on the bottom.

These photos are later to be used elsewhere and maybe enlarged. I feel that
enlarging them later as jpgs will mess them up worse than they are.

Any suggestions please?

Thank you as always
Katherine

[jones]

Like who - a professional?. This is all practise for me and I enjoy doing
it.

Any constructive suggestions?
Katherine

>
>>Any suggestions please?
>
> Hire someone who knows what they're doing.
>

[Kele]

Voivod,

Is there a news group etiquette not to "top post"? If so, please explain as
it seems much more natural to me to top post... like email.

-Kele

--------------------------------
"Voivod" <V...@vod.con> wrote:
On Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:51:03 +1100, "jones" <jo...@nowhere.com>
scribbled:

Don't top post. Learn to spell. How's that for constructive?

[Kele]

If you are using Photoshop, you can save a "work in progress" as a Photoshop
file (psd) and it doesn't degrade (compress) further. When you re-open a
.psd file, it's as if you never closed it - no next generation image
degradation. Try to refrain from saving a JPEG repeatedly as each time a
JPEG is saved, the image (file) compresses further. If you receive JPEGs,
it doesn't matter to convert it to BMP since the original JPEG has already
been compressed at least once; you're not adding more information to the
image by converting it.

Your situation sounds like one that I had creating wake/funeral brochures
for family. I can tell you that consumer grade scanners aren't that great
at rendering subtle differences. For example, I tried to lessen the
contrast to see more shadow detail and there wasn't any. That is the
scanner's shortcomings more so than the file format (JPEG), and note the
images I received were provided from more that one person (scanner) yet all
were similar in this regard.

Photo Optimizer? You get the watermark on your photos because it's a trial
version; once paid, the watermark isn't applied. If you have a digital
camera, you may have the included photo editing software already on your
computer; try that. IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/) is a free
all-purpose image viewer and has some photo editing functionality.
Remember, don't keep hitting the Save button and overwriting the previous -
with each Save, the JPEG compresses and artifacts multiply.

If you're confident the photos will need to be enlarged, enlarge them
yourself - work with the enlargements. Allowable email attachment files are
pretty sizeable now (Hotmail is 50MB) so there's no reason you can't go big
for an important project. Another option is upload the image to the
Internet and the recipient can download (example:
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive). Better if they have to
shrink your photos instead of blowing them up to print or otherwise.
Something I learned during the funeral... punch up the color
saturation/vividness/contrast (just before detail is lost). Washed-out
photos are worse when printed and/or projected on a large screen in a not so
dark room.

Photoshop guru's... please let me know if I'm mistaken in paragraph one,
etc. (to include top posting).

--------------------------
"jones" <jo...@nowhere.com> wrote :

[jones]

Thank you KELE,
I think voivod is a troll who has nothing better to do.

To Voivod,
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything.

Katherine

"Kele" < wrote in message

[jones]

Thank you again Kele,
You have offered good advice and will print this out for reference. Very
detailed and helpful.

Yesterday I received one to fix and it was all green. So I made it greyscale
and looks much better than playing around with the colours.

These pics go back to their "owner" to keep (fixed) until they are needed
for a special project overseas, so we won't know how they will be used.
Could be enlarged for framing and hung up around the walls.

You are right about saving often. I don't do that because of the JPGs. The
owner got them from others who scanned them in from the originals (wherever
they are), and passed on to different people as JPGs.

Thanks again for your help.
Katherine

"Kele" wrote in message

[Jonz]

On 12/30/2010 1:18 PM, jones wrote:
> Thank you KELE,
> I think voivod is a troll who has nothing better to do.
>
> To Voivod,
> If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything.
>
>

The only thing to do with voivod is to assign him/her/it to your twit
filter.

Jonz

[david johnson]

it really does depend on what size / res the jpg's are
and what you plan on doing with them afterwards

for example if you want to be printing them out, you need to have
pretty good jpgs. in the hundreds of kb not tens of kb. if you can
post one

if you just want for website then you'll be good to go

photoshop has many tools you can use

[Craig Schiller]

Here's a top post for you, asshole.

Fuck right off and go back to the troll world you came from.

"Voivod" <V...@vod.con> wrote in message
news:4j0qh6tb2a3nfi8j0...@isp5.newshosting.com...
> On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 08:18:08 +1100, "jones" <jo...@nowhere.com>
> scribbled:

>
>>Thank you KELE,
>>I think voivod is a troll who has nothing better to do.
>

> I have a few moments free to make fun of idiots like you, yes.

>
>>To Voivod,
>>If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything.
>

> When they elect you queen of the world, you top posting imbecile, then
> and only then do you get to tell me what to do.
>
>

[Jonz]

On 1/1/2011 9:18 AM, Joel wrote:
> "Craig Schiller"<cschi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
Promises, promises!!!

Jonz

>> Here's a top post for you, asshole.
>>
>> Fuck right off and go back to the troll world you came from.
>

> Heck, I don't care if you are an asshole or fuckinghole. But when you are
> topper then you will be in my killfile

[Craig Schiller]

Bite me, loser.

"Voivod" <V...@vod.con> wrote in message

news:li2sh69l89f4c814t...@isp5.newshosting.com...
> On Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:13:23 -0500, "Craig Schiller"
> <cschi...@earthlink.net> scribbled:

>
>>Here's a top post for you, asshole.
>>
>>Fuck right off and go back to the troll world you came from.
>

> It's so much fun when I don't even have to drag you down to my level.
> You leap and slide so willingly. The fragile and imaginary moral
> superiority is so easily broken. A few words, words mind you, the most
> harmless of things, and you're spouting off like a drunken dock worker.
>
> Congratulations, fucktard. You're just as bad, no... worse, than what
> you pretend to despise.
>
> Welcome to the dark side of the spoon!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I'm laughing at you. Still.
>
>

[Craig Schiller]

Golly, that's devastating news.

"Joel" <Jo...@NoSpam.com> wrote in message
news:idouh6lge5obkr4h2...@4ax.com...

> "Craig Schiller" <cschi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Here's a top post for you, asshole.
>>
>> Fuck right off and go back to the troll world you came from.
>

> Heck, I don't care if you are an asshole or fuckinghole. But when you are
> topper then you will be in my killfile
>

[N]

"Voivod" wrote in message
news:ajd1i6tc5ng69po1u...@isp5.newshosting.com...

> I never claimed to have killfiled anyone, doofus. You'd hardly be
> entertaining from behind a filter.

You must live a very boring life, if criticising top posting provides your
entertainment.

Why not get yourself out of the 80s and text based screens and join the
world of the graphical user interface?

--
N

[ArthurSimple]

is this a real ps user group?

[ArthurSimple]

On Dec 30 2010, 1:32 am, "jones" <jo...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> Been helping out a friend with old photos. Fixing them up a bit from tears
> etc.
>
> Trouble is he received them as jpgs and can't get the originals to scan them
> in for me as a better format like BMPs.
>
> Am I flogging a dead horse here, working with jpgs and returning them as
> jpgs?
>
> When I get them I save as BMPs a copy to work with. When I have finished I
> keep the BMP for me, and send him back the jpgs as it is better for him
> (smaller file).
>
> I have Photo Optimizer, but I have noticed on other photos that it leaves
> the words like ........... . com on the bottom.
>
> These photos are later to be used elsewhere and maybe enlarged. I feel that
> enlarging them later as jpgs will mess them up worse than they are.
>
> Any suggestions please?
>
> Thank you as always

> Katherine\
\

Sorry sweety, u probably can do nothing to get the images better then
they are (except; you could do something to make them "look better"...
depending on purpose you need them for...) Do not re-save them as jpgs
too many times. One time was too many for originals. Check what was
the compression they came in... this only to know what you actually
have in your hands... after editing save as jpgs only at highest q
with least compression or better without compression (maybe tiff)...
try not to edit "too much" whatever you do... any rotating, skewing
will move pixels and damage some detail areas and you don't want them
to do that... also keep editing at minimum if doing something with
color, contrast or any value there...

[jones]

Thank you for your help.

The only thing I can do is my best. I am taking out scratches, odd pixels
and general tidying up.

Some of the photos are not very sharp, so I am blurring the background so
the people will stand out a bit more. If the photo are beyond help, I turn
them to BW/Greyscale instead of the colours they came with.

I have tried the Sharpen tool, but most of the time it makes things worse,
so I undo.

Will keep plodding along, he only has a few hundred to tidy up. I did offer,
so I shouldn't complain :-)

"ArthurSimple" <arts...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1f4259f1-8afc-485b...@n32g2000pre.googlegroups.com...

[Kele]

Jones, you never said what you're using to fix photos. I play with HDR, see
here: http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial. Software can do fake HDR
with single photos. Reason I mention is that a blurred picture can look
sharper after HDR processing. Another blurred photo trick is to convert it
to a cartoon; yup I'm a Photoshop plug-in cheat. With layers, the affect
can be decreased so the original shines through - subtle but effective.
There are some awesome color cast correction plug-ins too. Are you top
posting!?

------------

[Kele]

I was wondering before switching to overlay. It's like a focus with minimal
change to the field. I just did an A><B comparison with your provided
method against nik Sharpener Pro 3 (my previously made "subtle" preset) and
I can't barely tell a difference - maybe a little halo with the high pass if
I look for it. Combining the high pass and nik layers work for a stronger
affect. Looks like instead of 1.5, 1.8 makes for more sharpening (I bet
that setting should coincide somehow with the image size). I probably
looked at the high pass filter and wondered what would I ever do with that.

Mahalo Nui Loa, John

----------------------
"John Stafford" <nh...@droffats.net> wrote:
"jones" <jo...@nowhere.com> wrote:

> I have tried the Sharpen tool, but most of the time it makes things worse,
> so I undo.

Copy to new layer
Filter - Other - High Pass (use 1.5 pixels)
Set layer mode to Overlay
Set layer transparency down, if necessary, until it looks best

Does that look better than using sharpening?

[jones]

"Kele" < wrote in message news

> Jones, you never said what you're using to fix photos. I play with HDR,
> see
> here: http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial. Software can do fake
> HDR
> with single photos. Reason I mention is that a blurred picture can look
> sharper after HDR processing. Another blurred photo trick is to convert
> it
> to a cartoon; yup I'm a Photoshop plug-in cheat. With layers, the affect
> can be decreased so the original shines through - subtle but effective.
> There are some awesome color cast correction plug-ins too. Are you top
> posting!?

I work with three progs - Photoshop - PSP - and good old standby Microsoft
Paint.

As I am still learning Photoshop, I find it easier to move among the 3 progs
for options that I feel the others don't have.

But will definitely check out your link. Thank you.

[Michael J Davis]

John Stafford <nh...@droffats.net> was inspired to say

>"jones" <jo...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> I have tried the Sharpen tool, but most of the time it makes things worse,
>> so I undo.
>

>Copy to new layer
>Filter - Other - High Pass (use 1.5 pixels)
>Set layer mode to Overlay
> Set layer transparency down, if necessary, until it looks best
>
>Does that look better than using sharpening?

I was just going to post that. Its much better than any sharpening and
mostly better than USM (which I only use at levels to reduce the effect
of the in camera anti-alias filter.)

I'd recommend layer mode to soft light (experiment between overlay, soft
light hard light, etc. and different levels of opacity/transparency).

Also I'd add that sometimes it can emphasise noise in out of focus
areas, in which case erase those areas in the High Pass layer.

I only use PS Elements 5 but it all works for me.

Mike
--
Michael J Davis

www.flickr.com/photos/watchman

<><
Photography takes an instant out of time,
altering life by holding it still. - Dorothea Lange
<><

[N]

"Joel" wrote in message news:8ajei6pf8gm3sg6n6...@4ax.com...

Michael J Davis <mjdu...@trustsof.co.uk> wrote:

> John Stafford <nh...@droffats.net> was inspired to say
> >"jones" <jo...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I have tried the Sharpen tool, but most of the time it makes things
> >> worse,
> >> so I undo.
> >
> >Copy to new layer
> >Filter - Other - High Pass (use 1.5 pixels)
> >Set layer mode to Overlay
> > Set layer transparency down, if necessary, until it looks best
> >
> >Does that look better than using sharpening?
>
> I was just going to post that. Its much better than any sharpening and
> mostly better than USM (which I only use at levels to reduce the effect
> of the in camera anti-alias filter.)
>
> I'd recommend layer mode to soft light (experiment between overlay, soft
> light hard light, etc. and different levels of opacity/transparency).
>
> Also I'd add that sometimes it can emphasise noise in out of focus
> areas, in which case erase those areas in the High Pass layer.
>
> I only use PS Elements 5 but it all works for me.
>
> Mike

I didn't see the original message, didn't see any reply but this one. But
as a professional photographer and photo-retoucher I would say.

1. Use the best lens to get the best image so there won't be anything wrong
with the quality to be fixed or improved

2. I almost never use any sharpen option, except sometime (only when I don't
feel right) I apply a little sharpen around the eyes or small part of female
portrait.

IOW, you should use the camera, lens to get the sharpness and great
quality image. Then you may soften a little instead of sharpen.
=================================================

Try this:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.graphics.photoshop/browse_thread/thread/80c31a4acc521dd9?hl=en#

This thread isn't about photography.

--
N

[jones]

Just to let you know that the photos are coming better with "Unmask". But
will definitely keep all the suggestions, as there is always room for
improvement on my part. So the tips will help me progress.

Thanks everyone.