As mentioned, there are many ways to reach the goal. This time I am not using afre_cleantext but afre_contrastfft (I haven’t written the GUI part yet).
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It may be, here’s 50KB DjVU page to support that.
Actually there is large community of book lovers who want “what sambul81 wants”. 
And it was obvious from the start, the man is highly intelligent and a bright talent. You guys rock!
Looks like I don’t need the collab after all. Don’t get too excited: I haven’t release the GUI yet.
There’s a bit more processing step that could be added. Lightness/Contrast and erode/dilate. And afre would have a working alternative to afre_cleantext.
I wonder if there was any improvement progress on the new “immature” plugin lately? 
I have found that the easiest way to eliminate bleed thru of text from the other side of the page, is to place a black sheet of paper behind the page being scanned. I use it all the time and it works great.
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Would you point to a suitable black material on Ebay or such? Or were did you get your sheets?
@Bilbo Yes, it is all about technique as I have been saying all along.
@sambul81 I have decided not to. You should improve your scanning technique first. Call it tough love. 
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And just one more thing, if you ever want to improve upon current technique, you could try to learn g’mic and contribute. Ever since learning g’mic, I’m far more independent in that aspect. On the side note, still need to learn c++ to finish some of my needs though since no one else wants to take it up.
I participate on other forums too. Some folks solicit commercial services for a fee on these forums despite being strictly prohibited by Rules. I was openly objecting to this abuse. The guy in retaliation contacted every software developer around the world we discussed on that forum asking them not to improve their free packages. The motif is clear - he was facing loss of illegal income. He might be a member of this forum too. However, he’s not the only one.
Some “free” soft devs abuse access to users sharing knowledge on such forums to develop improved software they offer for a fee to some companies. The technique is primitive: complain that you’re poor, incapable to survive, solicit samples and detail info about the problem and expected resolution from narrow knowledge holders, do all this by extending fake promises, and once collected enough info, show your real face to the forum. That works well too for some, if such conduct is allowed by the forum admins.
Another interesting possibility is using this forum to advertise skills you don’t actually have. For example, one can use a popular graphics editor to cleanup someone’s sample, and then say they developed their own code to do that. Of course when asked to show such a code, a suitable answer will be what? Empty handed… substitute proof by some rude redirection.
I want to tell you btw that you should address people in the manner they address you. You can’t dictate people what to do, can’t be rude - its against forum rules, and don’t give unsolicited advice when asked about totally different matters. I did not scan these pages at all, because the source doesn’t have an accessible scanner. Its clear from my above notes and the photos, so your comments about scans are not only unsolicited, but also irrelevant to the conversation and quite stupid to be honest.
This is a very bad habit, don’t ask people to be rude with you by abusing access to forum members and their polite honest attitude.
@sambul81 it isn’t clear what conspiracy theories you’re floating here and it doesn’t matter, really. Nobody is obliged to provide you anything at all, just as you are not obliged to provide them anything either. Whatever you provide is of your own volition. What you do on other forums and how people treat one another on those forums is not of consequence here.
We are all here because we have a common interest and generally enjoy solving problems around imaging. If someone happens to solve your problem 100%, that is fantastic. If they only solve it 1% or even zero, but share along that way, that is also good.
There is no floor or ceiling to sharing and everyone should share what they want, whether that is 100%, 1%, or 0%.
Seems like you got somewhere between 1 and 99%, you should be thankful.
Rudeness is not welcome here. You’ve ready been messaged once, let’s not go for more.
May I politely ask you what I should be thankful @afre for? Pls don’t try to misrepresent my reply as rude, since its a straight question. This forum declared goal is promoting free software and free graphics advice. In this post he claimed that he developed a plugin and shown corresponding picture, but failed short to give any guidance or explanation - and that’s the ONLY reason members share info here. Then later again without any explanation why he failed to deliver on his earlier plugin promise, he suddenly accepted a role of a teacher who is telling minors how to behave in school.
Who is this guy to begin with to be so rude to others? His input to my problem resolution is exactly ZERO, not btw 1 and 99% as you claim. The fake picture he posted can’t be used for anything at all, since no comments were provided how to achieve that.
I started this thread to discuss how to improve a photograph, and he is suddenly teaching me how to scan papers? Real substance of the discussed issue is substituted by some rude “advice” after fake plugin advertising. What should I be grateful to him for? By encouraging fake ads of non-existing skills and changing the discussion topic, you can’t promote honest people attitude here. Such conduct should not be supported by forum staff!
Most of the reference code is available in his gmic filter, called afre_cleantext, which is available here: gmic-community/afre.gmic at master · dtschump/gmic-community · GitHub
Have you tried it?
- His code are available in github/gmic-community
- It takes efforts to code. I mean if it weren’t that hard, our woes with available resources would be more or less solved. Especially those that comes from Adobe and will never be happy with FOSS 100%, but tries to get by.
- @afre is not paid to do his work.
- He has released contrastfft in g’mic-qt. Refresh your filters. You can figure that yourself, @afre is having real life issues and can’t meet your needs at the time.
- You can learn gmic-qt coding, in fact it is the easiest scripting language for image processing. I have experience in c# and c++.
I appreciate your input, but pls look at this thread title. Reading then its content, you’ll realize that plenty of narrow knowledge was disclosed here by the OP in exchange for help promise. At the end nothing was given in return apart from rude demands and fake ads. I did try both his plugins, and the result is here.
Seems like we all need to take a break from this, as we are resorting to accusations and name calling, which is not good for anyone.
Everything I did was out of kindness and good faith, so I do not appreciate the slander. Let me bring closure to this thread:
1 It is not unreasonable to recommend working on improving the scanning process. Cleaner input makes cleaner output possible. Now, it is possible that the book is unavailable for another pass; however, the advice is still valid and definitely not a demand. In fact, @David_Tschumperle, the developer of G’MIC, saw the value of the filter and suggested that I move it from Testing to Repair as-is. It is not for show but it didn’t meet the OP’s expectations.
2 Nothing is fake or manipulative about my statements and person. As the others have stated, the filters and their code are available for public use, testing and scrutiny. The reason that I didn’t share the specific values was that a user would likely arrive at different values anyway after tinkering with the GUI by him or herself. If values were desired, one only needed to ask.
3 I have no obligation to be here at all or engage with anyone. The fact that the thread reached this length was because I wanted to provide the support and think through the problem with the OP. Unfortunately, the more I tried to help, the more demands were put on me. I hope the readers can see the irony of that against what was said about me.
I not only wanted to help but was my usual vulnerable self, sharing that personal struggles were preventing me from helping as much as I wanted. I also explained why certain requests could not be fulfilled. A statement that I would look into it is not contractual. Looking into something does not mean that I have an obligation to deliver, let alone right away as the OP sees fit.
In conclusion, I am glad that afre_cleantext got the attention. It means that it is compelling enough for someone to ask about and use. Unfortunately, entitlement to how a filter or its author should behave and serve was highly inappropriate and hurtful. I am disappointed, not angry, in how our conversation turned out. Sometimes, online conversations can turn out this way due to assumptions and miscommunication. I hope it was mostly that and nothing deeper.
I do hope that the OP will find merit in and give afre_cleantext and afre_contrastfft another chance. If not, then all the best to the journey of recovering scanned material. I will continue to improve the filters and this thread has helped bring them to the fore of my mind.
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