How to make the text readable?

[Krikor]

Hi,
I have tried to rescue the text from a dedication made in the frame of a painting. 
So far my attempts have been unsuccessful, to the point of beginning to believe that it is indeed an impossible task.

As much as possible was insufficient to make the text readable.

Are there any specific techniques for this type of editing? Can you make the text at the bottom right readable?

The image is too big to display here on the forum. Even at Imgur I posted only part of the engraving that contains the dedication.
https://i.imgur.com/3guYk6W.png

Thank you in advance.

[denzjos]

Krikor, the text on the picture is not sharp and the photo of the picture is teken with a poor lens that produce out of focus corners or is taken with a wide angle lens. So there are two issues to solve. I've tried some things, but now without result.
As far as I get with gimp : Filters/Enhance/High Pass

   

[Krikor]

denzjos,

This image was posted on a forum in Portuguese and the user asked for help to make the dedication in this picture legible, which belongs to his aunt.
At first he had made a 532x770 image available, so after unsuccessful attempts on my part, I asked the user if he could make a photo with a higher resolution available. So he made it available with 8592x12420, but I was also not successful in this task.
In the past 03 days I didn't have time for further attempts. It seems that there is really nothing that can be done.

Thank you for trying and raising these two problems regarding image quality.

Thx.

[Krikor]

Hi folks,

The user wishes to rescan the image he now has in hand.
What would be the best setting to get the best quality to make the text readable?

Resolution of the image at the moment: 8592 x 12420


Thx.

https://i.imgur.com/MjXTr6d.jpg

[Ofnuts]

(05-31-2021, 03:41 PM)Krikor Wrote: Hi folks,

The user wishes to rescan the image he now has in hand.
What would be the best setting to get the best quality to make the text readable?

Resolution of the image at the moment: 8592 x 12420

Thx.

If it's a scan, then he needs a better scanner, because the image is blurry. For a while I thought it was a bad camera or that the image was upscaled (because there aren't that many 100MPx cameras, and people who have one usually don't go to amateur forums asking for help).


So, if this is scanned, it has to be scanned at the real best resolution of the scanner (ie, one where there is no software upscaling), which can be found by scanning sharp text (for instance, a page from a magazine) at increasing resolutions. And possibly do several scans, with several brightness levels. And if the scanner is good enough, do two scans after rotating the image by 180° so that the paper texture can be eliminated.

JPEG is fine, but 1) quality 70 is a bit low (90 is OK) and 2) to avoid losing any data there should be no chroma sub-sampling.

[denzjos]

If this is a scan (which I doubt given the blurry corners all around) he should best put the text in the middle of the scanner bed. If the copy was made with a camera, it is best to position the text in the middle of the image (and preferably use a tripod)

[programmer_ceds]

To keep the image sizes down just scan the rectangle containing the writing.

[CtrlAltDel]

It's questionable if that is even a signature, really.  It could just be some age imperfections.

[PixLab]

There is definitively some text at the bottom right!
Most of the text was washed out (water/humidity?) as the bottom of the image seems to have suffer from water.
Just above the "signature" in the red circling on the png I did, you can clearly see that some one did "frost" it with a finger (or it's water damage), this part might not be recoverable.
The owner should scan it in 2 modes ->in B&W and in color BUT put that corner in the center of the scanner! or take a picture with a tripod of that corner only right in the center of the picture
Also it would help to know in which language it was written, actually I'm reading on the last line "I'm Fine" which is wrong if it was written in Portuguese

   
or
https://imgur.com/a/3nduOwN

[Machadojon]

(06-02-2021, 06:21 AM)PixLab Wrote: There is definitively some text at the bottom right!
Most of the text was washed out (water/humidity?) as the bottom of the image seems to have suffer from water.
Just above the "signature" in the red circling on the png I did, you can clearly see that some one did "frost" it with a finger (or it's water damage), this part might not be recoverable.
The owner should scan it in 2 modes ->in B&W and in color BUT put that corner in the center of the scanner! or take a picture with a tripod of that corner only right in the center of the picture
Also it would help to know in which language it was written, actually I'm reading on the last line "I'm Fine" which is wrong if it was written in Portuguese


or
https://imgur.com/a/3nduOwN

Hi I’m the owner of the picture has more than 150 years old and because the age the info was washed out! The language it is in Portuguese.
I do have a good camera to take the picture any exposure or configuration that could provide a better result?