Hows this look?

[Ausimax]

Max

[Hannie]

Max, what an amazing job, it looks great!

:wnw:

Hannie

[mschonher]

Wow Max, that looks beautiful and new.  Great work.

Mary

[Mhayes]

Great job Max! The writing looks so clean and sharp now.

Margie

[hoodman3]

Max,

Great job! It looks like you put the writing on a new background, but how did you make the selection. It's very clean.

Pete

[klassylady25]

I was hoping you'd take that Max.  I thought about it, but you do such great work on them.  I was right!  :up:

Candy

[glennab]

Absolutely wonderful, Max.  How did you do it?  It's so pristine that the owner could only be delighted!  Kudos, my friend!

GK

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Wonderful job Max. :up: As soon as I saw this one I thought Max will take it. Do spill the beans on your method, you get such great results.

[Ausimax]

Hi Folks,

Thanks all for your kind words, though I must admit that doing documents is more a triumph of patience and tenacity (AKA stupidity) over skill, I only wish I could discover a quick and easy way of doing them.

For those interested I will reveal my magic method – I wish!

1.   I dupe the original layer and colour correct near to what I suspect the original looked like, this becomes the working layer. I then straighten the document if needed.

2.   I then find the least damage and best coloured part of the background and clone it out until I have a reasonable area restored, I then make a pattern from it and create a new layer and fill with the pattern, this becomes the new background and I move it below the working layer.


3.   Next is to open a new layer and recreate the lines, select a colour that matches the existing lines and a hard brush of the appropriate size, I then use the Shift/Click method to draw the lines. When done move this layer below the working layer.

4.   Next I create a new layer and fill it with white or any other colour you like as long as it contrasts with the background and move it below the working layer.

5.   Now for the fun part, activate the working layer and click on the add mask icon – active the mask and with a hard brush start painting out the old background – the beauty of this method is if you booboo you can just hit the X key and paint it back . The rest is just the scut work of tracing around all the text and working out what is part of the old lines or the writing – that's why I use a white background layer its easier to see what you have covered than if you work directly above the new background – I work at about 200% most of the time. The photo shows the layer structure and the work in progress.



6.   When I have completed painting out the muck I run a small blur over the mask about 1 pixel or less to soften the edges of the text – next activate the layer icon and select the text colour, then with a large brush paint over the text the mask confines it to the actual text so you don't have to be to particular about slopping a bit of paint about.

7.   Next I use the eraser set at about 20% and wipe over the text to lighten it a little and create the illusion of differing writing pressure.

8.   Lastly, paint over the Type text with the appropriate colour and its done.

You can carry out any final adjustments to the various layers- colour, opacity etc and you have your masterpiece. If you have the skill you may be able to achieve the same result by copying the text on another layer, I've tried without success. Where there is a pattern or design in the paper it's a case of cloning around the text with the existing background.


Max

[Ratz]

WOW! Max, what an outstanding job, just great :up:

[Hannie]

Max, thanks for the tut on your text restoration.  It is a lot of work but your method makes it easier to work a little faster without having to worry about mistakes too much.
Very nice!

Hannie

[hoodman3]

Max,

Thanks for the tut. WOW that's a lot of work! Great job.

Pete