[Gimp-user] tips on enhancing text written in pencil

[Daniel Hornung]

On Thursday 05 March 2009, James wrote:
> Ideally, I'd like all the yellowed paper that forms the background
> of these images to turn as close to white as possible, while all the pencil
> text should be as close to black as possible. Can anyone point me to things
> I can try under gimp that will help me accomplish these aims?

If you have to work with many pages, my first idea would be to do an automatic 
white balance correction (Colors > Auto > White Balance).  With a little 
luck, it'll pick the "yellow" as white and the pencil as black.  If that 
doesn't work out as you expect, do it manually with the levels tool[1], and 
make use of the three eye droppers (mainly the white one) in the "All 
channels" section.

Getting to know the levels tool (or curves too for even more control) will 
help you with photos and scans anyway.

Greetings, 
Daniel


[1] http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-tool-levels.html
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