#Image clean-up
12 messages in this thread
Hi,
I'm digitizing video images using a frame grabber then importing them to my
DPaintIV AGA program to modify them. The images are mostly hand drawn cartoons
in black on white. The digitizing process renders very smooth drawings with
little "jaggies." However, due to the non-uniform lighting (and video cameras
that are just too blasted light sensitive <g>) my pictures end up with a lot of
dots as artifacts. I can get rid of a lot of them by adjusting the dynamic
range, contrast, and number of colors (down to 4) with AdPro, but there are
still too many to be acceptable.
Looking at them closely, most are single pixels. I think if I could eliminate
all the single pixel dots, the remaining one's would be few enough for me to
live with. The Disney Animation Studio program has a function which cleans up
all stray pixels, however, it only works in 2 color images, and the selection
of screen modes is few.
Now here's the question: does anybody know of a program, paint program, or
technique that will delete or "clean up" all the stray (single) pixels?
Thank you in advance for any advice or tips.
Bruce
Doesn't ADPro have a noise reduction operator to remove isolated pixels?
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
DJ,
>>Doesn't ADPro have a noise reduction operator to remove isolated pixels?
Um, yeah, now that I take a better look at the manual. There's an operator
that's called "remove isolated pixels." Guess it sometimes pays to read the
instructions <g>. Thanks for your help.
Bruce
No problemo.
DJ
On AP from Queens, the thrill and excitement of the Big Apple
ImageMaster will clean out those stray pixels for you. One thing I would
suggest is that you experiment more with better lighting on the copy stand if
you are using Digiview. They used to recommend fluorescent light but I never
got good results with that. I use at least 2 regular 100 watt light bulbs. This
will give you less of the light fall off problem. ImageMaster also has a Line
Art and an Edge Line function. If you are working it black and white, that
might get you most of the way there. Good cables and a good lens help a great
deal with Digiview in reducing noise and giving you a better picture.
>>One thing I would suggest is that you experiment more with better lighting on
the copy stand if you are using Digiview.
I'm still working on getting a copy stand. I'm living in Russia, and haven't
found one here yet. I checked around the local photo shops before I came
here, and they didn't have anything under a few hundred. Currently, I'm using
a swivel head tripod looking down and a couple of table lamps.
>>They used to recommend fluorescent light but I never got good results with
that. I use at least 2 regular 100 watt light bulbs. This will give you less of
the light fall off problem.
Even with my two table lamps, at 60 Watts each, I seem to do better than with
fluorescent or camera light. The camera light wouldn't be bad except that the
diffuser makes prominent rings. What I would like to find are some of those
clamp on sockets with the cone-like reflectors (high tech talk huh?).
>>ImageMaster will clean out those stray pixels for you. ImageMaster also has
a Line Art and an Edge Line function.
Per the advice of others, I looked and found a Remove Stray Pixel function in
my Adpro. It worked pretty good. I've tried the Line Art operater in Adpro,
but it resulted in pretty thick lines – not what I need at the moment. What
kind of results do you get with the Edge Line function of ImageMaster?
Bruce
PS Thanks for your previous advice.
I'm not sure what you mean by "camera lighting" – are you talking about camera
floodlights for still photography ? That would be very good light indeed. There
are fancy copy stands one can buy that accommodate four bulbs. Maybe you could
mess around and get more lights even if it means using a gooseneck bulb holder
etc. I haven't used AdPro in long time but does it not have a 'sensitivity'
slider so that you can make it detect edges at a greater or less value.
Imagemaster can do edge line with black on white, white on black, or leave the
background and black lines. You might try by making a clip or brush of the
smallest area with your desired artwork in it. I start with improving the
contrast and then do a RIP (remove isolated pixels) in the areas that are the
worst. I know exactly what problem you are dealing with as I have to digitize a
great deal of fine black and white artwork/diagrams right now. I would at this
point like to have a flatbed scanner. Light fall off etc. would be minimized. I
can't remember if AdPro has a 'Unmask Sharp' but you should be able to improve
things very much with a 'Dynamic Range' function. I hope that you are
digitizing this artwork all by itself with none of the copy stand or a misc.
background showing. That just takes away from the available range of the
digitized image. Be sure to save as a 24 bit RGB image. You'll have more to
work with.
>>I'm not sure what you mean by "camera lighting" – are you talking about
camera floodlights for still photography ? That would be very good light
indeed.
The camera light that I tried was a bright Camcorder light. The light has a
soft diffuser made up of concentric rings. This renders very prominent dark
circles in the digitized image.
>>I hope that you are digitizing this artwork all by itself with none of the
copy stand or a misc. background showing. That just takes away from the
available range of the digitized image.
I've sometimes gotten a little background, but I crop the image prior to
applying the dynamic range operator. Is that sufficient or am I still loosing
something?
>>Be sure to save as a 24 bit RGB image. You'll have more to work with.
Thanks, I will.
Bruce
Try to get better lighting. If you can borrow some lights you will be surprised
at the difference. Cropping out the background is not the same as having little
or no background. I mean, if you can do it, you should eliminate the copy stand
photo grey or the white sheet of paper or whatever you are digitizing on. Have
the subject fill as much of the lens as possible. The reason is that the
Digiview software has to contract a lot of the light values sent to it. If it
is making that decision and not you, it will dither to accommodate your
background and not as much for the subject. Excessive contrast gives you a bad
scan. Another thing you should check is your camera alignment. You want to be
parallel to the copy stand. You can place a level on the camera and see where
you are at. Cheapo cables do not help at all. I use Monster brand video cables
which cost about $18.00 as opposed to the Radio Shack ones that are $6.00 for
the same length.
Bruce,
Imagemaster R/t not only has RIP (Remove Isolated Pixels), it has RIS
(Remove Isolated streaks), RIC (Remove Isolated Chunks), and RF (Remove
Feature). In the area of line generation and modification processing, it
has contour line, edge line, thin, thicken, connect, disconnect, line art,
lined, & blueprint.
These can also be combined with the hudreds of other classes of operations
that IM R/t provides for a very wide variation in effect.
None of the other packages on the Amiga offer this kind of power.
–Ben
…via AutoPilot
Try ImageKnife
Never heard of it. Is it a program, or an operator in a program? If it's a
program, where can I learn more about it?
Bruce