How to sharpen a non-SVG logo using Photoshop

[New_guy1]

This is my first time using the sharpening function in Photoshop.

I'd appreciate some tips, tricks, traps ... perhaps a video on cleaning up this logo.

Yeah. It's a crappy PNG.

[Mylenium]

There's nothing to clean up. This is far beyond salvagable. You have to re-type the letters using a uitable font or re-draw them using paths.

Mylenium

[New_guy1]

There's actually a organization artwork logo above the text which I can't show.

This is my first time using the sharpening function in Photoshop.

I'd appreciate some tips, tricks, traps ... perhaps a video on cleaning up this logo.

[melissapiccone · Accepted solution]

Forget it, it's beyond hope. You can try and bring it into Illustrator for Live Trace. You need to re-create. Sharpening won't help you at all here.

[New_guy1]

I did not know about live trace.

Thanks!

[Bo_LeBeau]

If the logo is as bad as the "NATION" you posted, Live Trace won't work.

Try looking for a larger version of the logo first.

You will likely need to redraw the logo from scratch, but you can try Live Trace if you can get a larger, sharper logo to begin with.

Probably won't work, but you have nothing to loose.  The NATION is a lost cause. As Mylenium suggested, just recreate with a similar font. It will be faster and save you a lot of aggravation.

In Illustrator you can place the logo on a layer and change the layer options to template. This will lower the opacity to 40% and lock the layer.

Make sure this layer is at the bottom of the stack. Create new layers above this to redraw the logo.

When redrawing, just use a thin stroke and NO fill. You can go back later and add the fill and  change or eliminate the stroke.

If you use a fill from the start, you will quickly realize your mistake when you have overlapping elements.

You also can temporarily turn off layers to make editing easier.