Hi all,
Is there any way to sharpen the faces of all persons on the photo uploaded? If YES, please advise the details steps. Thanks
Regards
Use the model you want to DL the sharpening, then paint a mask over the faces.
Such bad-quality photos can be enhanced using neural networks, but they âfill inâ missing details based on whatever photos had been fed to them.
This was done using chaiNNer and the codeformer model.
You should probably sharpen the whole thing, and treat the faces separately â as you can see, now they are way too sharp, relative to the rest of the photo.
Adding that (Refocus Cleanly):
With such networks, you always have to experiment, because (just like Midjourney and the others) they can produce aliens and weirdosâŚ
This is not so much a matter of sharpening but more of missing detail (information).
So either use AI or be very gentle with the sharpening. Otherweise the Image will look unnatural.
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Hi,
Please advise which AI shall I use? Thanks
Regards
With more time and effort I am sure this could be made better but helping out exposure and a couple of other things can sort of help⌠more masking and effort to reduce any artifacts would be neededâŚlike the sky in the back groundâŚ
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This would be a scanned image from a late 70s or early 80âs photograph that was shot in China. All scans need sharpening applied as the first step to photo restoration. I have opened your small JPG image in DT. First I applied local contrast, then the diffuse or sharpen moduleâs preset for lens deblur hard, and finally the sharpen module to default settings. I see no need for AI on this image because the period of the image doesnât require razor sharp images.
The better question here may be how to get the best scan from this image to maximise the detail and sharpness. However, you may have supplied a reduce size image deliberately. I would want a bigger scan to do a better job.
20241111_110811 (1)_40.jpg.xmp (4.2 KB)
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EXIF info on the uploaded image gives:
- Image Width {0x0100} = 4000 pixels
- Image Length {0x0101} = 3000 pixels
- Camera Make {0x010F} = samsung
- Camera Model {0x0110} = Galaxy S24 Ultra
No dedicated scanner, but a smartphone used to photograph an existing photo.
And indeed, the initial size of the reproduction was 3000Ă4000 pixels, so that would be a much better starting point for any work. Even then, final results would depend on the size and quality of the original photoâŚ
Hi all,
Thanks for your reply.
This is without magnifying the photo, 1:1. I can make another shot 1:2. The image is double the size of the photo.
I found using a smart phone camera converting hard copy photos to digitized images is much faster than on flatbed camera.
Yes but the quality isikely much worse.
An old paper print (or a film negative/transparency) has no dimensions in pixels, itâs up to you how many you use to capture/scan it. Donât be fooled by DPI or PPI values, those are just metadata helping to convert the number of pixels into physical dimensions when printing. 3000 pixels on one side could give you a 10" / 254 mm print to use at normal viewing distances, or a 10â / ~3 m poster that youâd view from further away: in both cases, itâs the same number of pixels, the same amount of data.
Hi kofa,
Thanks for your advice. It is clear to me now.
I have about 2,000 hard-copy old photos, captured in the past by me world-wide. At that time there were no digital camera nor video camera. They are well packed in plastic folders. Unfortunately some of them are already fading in color.
Iâm now building a website âmy foot prints on the Earthâ on the old photos. The easy way digitizing all my old hard-copy photos is with a camera. I have no high-quality camera therefore I use my mobile photo camera instead. The capturing set is very simple to set up:
- Camera - Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, mounted on tripod and connected to a desktop PC via USB cable (it is possible connected via WiFi)
- Desktop PC, running Ubuntu Linux 24.04 (Windows PC also works)
- Software - remote desktop, FREE (it have both Windows and Linux version)
I only operate the computer keyboard and replace photos on an indexing board.
This is a very easy setup and excellent to digitize large quality of hard copy photos.
I have all film negatives, also well packed in plastic envelops and stored in boxes. I have full technology and experience digitizing them and converting them to positive digital images. But the problem is without indication on where the photos were captured. On the hard copy photos I have markings of the place the photos taken and the persons on the photos.
Regards
I have not as many old photoâs as that and I havenât had too much time to play with them. I also have some negatives and so I picked up an epson scanner online used as they are harder to come by now ie ones that will scan negatives.
I did a few runâs on it of old photos first, ones that I had taken in late 80âs and 90âs that I had sitting in a box. I did them in HQ Tiff and tried the various software options in the scanning software⌠Dust is certainly a pain THe results were okay but nothing stunning.
But out of curiousity I tried doing a few of them with my Pixel 8 and the Google lens app where you move the camera and it compensates for glare⌠I was really impressed and for just general archiving and sharing on-line these were quicker and better than what I was getting from the softwareâŚ
More time with the scanner might land me on better settings but for now the phone is more than good enough for sharing them
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This is the only viable way (apart from using a high-quality scanner) to achieve good results. I have digitised all my (and my familyâs) analogue pictures this way, going back to about year 1900. More than 20k pictures. I also tried the (faster) way of using a smartphone first, but the results were really disappointing in comparison.
Thanks for the detailed description. Maybe investing in a flatbed scanner would be wise, at least for the photos.
Surely the phone can also take higher resolution photos (itâs OK to post a high-res photo that is to be processed, even large raw files). But I still feel that a scanner, with its controlled environment (exposure level and white balance) is a better tool for the job.
Hi kofa,
You can make a comparison on following link;
Digital Camera vs. Flatbed Scanner
https://www.reddit.com/r/AnalogCommunity/comments/18c0f2m/digital_camera_vs_flatbed_scanner/
I have old Epson flatbed scanner. The scanning speed is too slow. I wonât follow this route. Besides I only use the digitized images creating photo slideshows for website NOT for printing.
Iâll further treat those defective photos in photo editing software on computer such as AI.
If not for marking problem my best solution is capturing their negatives with high-end camera. I can capture 6 negative photos in one shot and converting them to positive images with one-click. Cutting them separately on computer is easy.
Besides if the old photos and their negatives are not flat enough I place a crystal glass on top to flatten them.
Edit:
- To purchase a high-end camera I can use it taking photos and video in travelling, before/after finishing scanning all my old photos. For a high-end scanner, I only can put it in store room after finishing my job.
- I donât need to purchase a light-box for scanning negatives. I use either my Laptop computer or an old computer display as light-box. There are FREE software on Internet for this use.
I have no experience with negatives/slides, and only scan photos every now and then. Iâm sure you can find the solution that suits you best.
Regarding processing: make sure the digitised versions are not overexposed (no details are lost), and try to get images higher resolution for processing (if higher resolution only reveals more noise/grain, and not real details, donât bother). You can always downsize high-res originals for web display once youâre done processing.
Good luck!
Thanks for your advice.
It is easy to convert image sizes/resolution on Terminal with âconvertâ command of Imagemagick. It is FREE on Internet, working on Windows and Linux.
$ convert original_image.png -resize 200x100 new_image.jpg
OR
$ convert -resize 50% original_image.png new_image.jpg
Or
$ convert -resize 1200x1000 original_image.png new_image.jpg
Or
$ convert -enhance -equalize -contrast original_image.jpg new_image_enhanced.jpg
etc.
Hi Kofa and all,.
Iâm now injecting my effort to restore fade old photos to digitised images at camera capturing stage, the upstream. Wonderful, there are many features(settings) on Android phone camera. I just applied âfilterâ feature and it did a good job. Please refers to attached screenshots.
I use remote-access controlling the Android phone camera. Its setup, both hardware and software are very simple. Also please refers to attached screenshots.
To convert. hard-copy photos of good quality to digitized images, we can use âgoogle scanâ on Android phone . We just hold the phone camera with hands to shoot. No hardware setup is required. âgoogle scanâ is available on âPlay storeâ, FREE to use.
This is a NEW era !!! We donât need a flatbed scanner. Taking a shot is much much ⌠faster than scanning on a flatbed scanner !!!
Besides we can shoot 4 (four) hardcopy photos in ONE shot simutaneously !!!
