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Removing newsprint pattern from photos.

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
October 1, 2015
4 replies
64565 views

Have some old photos, some with newsprint patterns. ?Any way to remove the ink-dot pattern?

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Correct answer sarsaxen

Please follow the below steps that might help you:

1. The first thing you want to do is scan the newspaper in at a very high resolution.(600dpi). Sometimes you will want to scan the image at an angle to help avoid as much of a moire pattern as possible.

2. In Photoshop, duplicate the layer and make it a Smart Object – not necessary to do both.

3. Add a Gaussian Blur of 3.7 pixels to essentially merge the dots and create smoother gradients. This amount may vary depending on the size of the dots and the resolution at which you scanned.

4. Then apply the Unsharp Mask filter with settings:

o Amount: 120%
o Radius: 5px
o Threshold: 1 level

Applying too much sharpening will introduce halos around the edges which will take away from the impact of the image and will look very unprofessional.

5. Resample the image to your end resolution. The resampling will help remove some of the apparent blurriness of the image as well.

6. At the end, just add a simple Curves Adjustment Layer to add some contrast.

Regards

Sarika

J

Jaydude-wb

Inspiring

FYI, these are called 'halftone patterns'.

Semaphoric

Community Expert

Another tool to try is the Median filter. It can help to rotate your image first, so that the dots got vertical and horizontal, and resize the image so that the spacing between the dots is on even pixel boundaries (since the Median filter can't be set to fractional pixel values). Note the values you use for these operations, and when you're done, use complementary value to restore your image to its original size and orientation.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

You can also looking into using a FFT filter. It's good for removing textures from images.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Chuck Uebele wrote:

You can also looking into using a FFT filter. It's good for removing textures from images.

I can't believe it took seven replies for FFT to be suggested.

Chuck Uebele

Community Expert

Me too.

sarsaxen

Correct answer

Community Manager

HI R Lede,

Please follow the below steps that might help you:

1. The first thing you want to do is scan the newspaper in at a very high resolution.(600dpi). Sometimes you will want to scan the image at an angle to help avoid as much of a moire pattern as possible.

2. In Photoshop, duplicate the layer and make it a Smart Object – not necessary to do both.

3. Add a Gaussian Blur of 3.7 pixels to essentially merge the dots and create smoother gradients. This amount may vary depending on the size of the dots and the resolution at which you scanned.

4. Then apply the Unsharp Mask filter with settings:

o Amount: 120%
o Radius: 5px
o Threshold: 1 level

Applying too much sharpening will introduce halos around the edges which will take away from the impact of the image and will look very unprofessional.

5. Resample the image to your end resolution. The resampling will help remove some of the apparent blurriness of the image as well.

6. At the end, just add a simple Curves Adjustment Layer to add some contrast.

Regards

Sarika