How to sharpen handwriting on photos of archival pages?

Question

I got a lot of photographs of 17/18/19-century archives, with texts in dutch, latin, french, german handwriting.
In some cases it is very difficult to decipher the text.
Are there handy procedures (using Photoshop CS6 or CC) for sharpening the handwriting?
Peter J. Veger, Best Netherlands

Answer 1

Peter, I run into this often and there are a couple of things you might try. First, try using a Levels Adjustment Layer and increase the contrast, which means you can also try a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer as well. If you are scanning the photos, scan them in RGB rather than grayscale and scan them at a high resolution - for example: if you have a 4 X 5 inch photo and you are going to print it, you need to scan at a resolution at least as high as your printer. If you want to enlarge it, scan it proportionally higher, etc. Once you have your image (in RGB) open the Channels Panel and click through the RGB channels to see which offers the greatest clarity of the writing. If they are going to be printed in grayscale, pick which channel looks the best and delete the other two.
I'm guessing that you have tried sharpening the writing and the results were not so good. Another suggestion is to use scanning software that will output a RAW file in TIFF or DNG format. That way you can do all manner tweaks in ACR. Few scanners and even less software will output an actual RAW file. I have been using VueScan (www.hanrick.com). There are several software packages out there for a great deal more money than VueScan, but that's the one I use with great success. The sharpening tool in ACR is very effective. As well, ACR has auto masking and an Adjustment brush with a great deal of latitude. If a TIFF is the only file you can produce, no problem...you can open a TIFF in ACR. I forgot to mention that VueScan will output a 16 bit grayscale...that might give you more to work with.
I hope this helps.
John