Remove background in Acrobat Pro

[pierret18811376]

Hello,

I have scanned an article from a Newspaper, and to remove the background I have made :

1) In Acrobat Pro, I click on the "Modify" panel.

2) Then I click on the background and click on the "Delete" key.

Result : all the "grey" background of the newspaper has gone, so I have a white background with the text.

All is OK for the text, but I see that a part of the drawing has disappeared (the drawing is the face of a person).

By removing the "grey" background, how to keep the newspaper drawing ?

[try67]

You need to use an image editor for this task, like Photoshop.

[JR Boulay]

Yes, right-clic on the scanned image using the Edit tool: Edit with Photoshop: then clic on the "Remove background" A.I. tool.

[pierret18811376]

In another case, in a PDF, I have a musical score with a yellow background. How to remove the yellow background while keeping the best quality on the music notes ? I don't succeed to do it on my PDF in Acrobat Pro.

[try67]

Since this is a scanned page you should use an image editor (like Photoshop) for such edits.

[pierret18811376]

About my problem on this musical score, this is not coming from a scan (it was downloaded from a site).

The problem is I have not Photoshop and don't want to buy it. And I have seen Photoshop videos where I see we can remove the background around an object (by selecting the outline of this object), but in a msuical score, how to do the same when we have a lot of music notes ?

I don't understand why the edit function of Acrobat pro is unable to remove the background in such a case (directly inside a PDF).

[try67]

You downloaded it, but the person who created it did so from a scan. It can be clearly seen in the screenshot.

The reason Acrobat can't do it is it's only a PDF editor (and not really that, either), but PDFs can contain all kinds of media so it relies on external applications for editing images, audio, video, etc., even though it can display or play all of them. That's just how it works. And you don't need to use Photoshop. You can use the free Gimp application, for example, or the Convert Colors command of Acrobat, but it's much more limited.

[JR Boulay]

Acrobat n'est pas un logiciel de retouche d'image.

Ci-dessous un exemple de ce qu'on peut facilement obtenir dans Photoshop avec le plus ancien et le plus basique des réglages existants : les "Niveaux" (Levels). Le truc à savoir c'est qu'avant d'utiliser les Niveaux il faut convertir l'image (qui est en mode RVB) en mode "Niveaux de gris" (grayscale), sinon le noir reste marronasse.

Le réglage de Niveaux est disponible dans tous les bons logiciels de retouche d'image, à commencer par The Gimp.

S'il y a beaucoup de pages à traiter l'idéal serait d'utiliser un logiciel qui permet d'automatiser cette opération (comme Photoshop, pour The Gimp je ne sais pas).

[pierret18811376]

In Acrobat Pro, about the "Convert color" command, how to set it in order to improve the background of my ¨PDF musical score ?

[Luke Jennings3]

While an image editor is the best tool for this job, there are some Acrobat tools that can do a passable job. First go to Tools> Scan & OCR> Enhance> Camera Image> Enhance> Adjust level (+), this will remove most of the background. You can then use a preflight fixup to darken the midtones. Go to Tools> Print Production> Preflight> Fixups, type "tone" in the search window, select the preflight shown in the attached screen shot and duplicate it from the "Options" fly out menu (you can't edit the original preflight), edit the duplicate preflight and select one of the midtone correction options, apply the preflight by clicking "fix" at the bottom of the window. 

[JR Boulay]

Convert Colors has nothing to do with what you want to do:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/color-conversion-ink-management-acrobat.html

You should instead be interested in the answers you are given.

[pierret18811376]

@try67 

You have said : "You can use the free Gimp application, for example, or the Convert Colors command of Acrobat, but it's much more limited."

As you are talking about the "convert color command of Acrobat",  what is it exactly ?

I thought it was corresponding to that :

[try67]

Yes, that's the one. I thought it could also be applied to images, but I might have been wrong about that. In that case using an external editor is your best option, as mentioned above.

[pierret18811376]

@try67 

Your idea was very interesting, because my goal is to try to do all that job inside Acrobat Pro. I do not plan to buy Photoshop or use Gimp. And I see that Luke has succeeded to do it very well inside Acrobat.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Can be done in InDesign - but no guarantees that it will print correctly... 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/remove-background/m-p/14618774#M574200

[pierret18811376]

@Luke Jennings3 

You have said : "While an image editor is the best tool for this job, there are some Acrobat tools that can do a passable job. First go to Tools> Scan & OCR> Enhance> Camera Image> Enhance> Adjust level (+), this will remove most of the background. "

I have tried to do "Scan and OCR", then I have this :

But I don't know where to "adjust level" in order to "remove most of the background" ?

[Luke Jennings3]

See attached screen shot, save pdf after adjusting levels.

[pierret18811376]

I understand very well what you are saying, but you are with the ancient Acrobat GUI, and I am with the new Acrobat GUI where I don't succeed to find the adjust enhancement level + / -  :

[Luke Jennings3]

There have been issues with the new interface, I don't know if the level adjustment is available in the new interface. You can revert to the previous interface by following the instructions in this discussion:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/acrobat-2023-how-to-revert-to-classic-gui-user-in...