Workflow to scan old cursive from yellowed pages

[GreenDragon]

Hi, I volunteered to scan handwritten recipies from my departed grandmother's old notebook.

The lines pages are yellowed in places and fine in others.

I am very new to Silverfast Ai and have tried numerous mthods--probably the wrongs ones or incorrectly.

I understand that this cursice text is "line art" and have tried 1 bit scanning at 4800 on the Epson 4990. But the blotchy yellow cast comes out black, obscuring much of the text.
Tried color to gray scale conversion, too, afyer scanning in 16>8 bit. Also tried color scanning and selective color correction.

I also found and order the book: SilverFast The Official Guide

But I am getting nowhere!!

Can someone suggest what works best with this type of jon--a "workflow"?

Thanks!

Jeff

[degrub]

It is not an easy problem, because the "yellow" is not a cast and non uniform.
The suggestion i would make is scan in color and do selective color replacement with masks and use the healing tool in PS if you have that. WHat you are trying to do is more in the line of photo restoration. i would suggest getting a copy of Katrin Eismann's book on retouching (now at 3rd edition) and using her workflow for correcting damaged prints.

Why not just leave the yellowing as a historical artifiact if the writing is readable ?

[GreenDragon]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I am supposed to create output for B&W repro for family members; not color.
And if scan 1 bit, I can't see a lot of text due to the yellow blotching turning black and obscuring the text.

I saw that book--and it looks excellent--but it presupposes that one has PS--I have Elements 2.0 which came with the scanner.

But on Usenet someone sugggested Kinko's copy machines and THEN to scan.
I copied the old notebook and have 1 bit copies with text and white background; the blotching is virtually removed.
Now I have to scan it 1 bit and maybe it'll work now?

Jeff

[degrub]

scan greyscale and play with either curves or contrast and brightness until the blotches disappear. 1 bit still has to decide at what level it is black or white .

[RAG]

GreenDragon,

An excellent source of information on scanning "Line Art" may be found in "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Studio Techniques" by Ben Willmore. ISBN 0-321-32189-8

The book covers things I'm sure you are able to accomplish in Adobe Elements, at least with the current version. More important, you will gain an understanding of issues when scanning Line Art.