We often think of Adobe Photoshop as a program that deals with photorealistic images. After all, it is the program of choice for separating 4-Color Process, Indexed Separations and Simulated Process Color. But, it is also a very powerful tool for fixing low quality, low resolution line art images. Figure 1 shows what appears to be a simple image for a dance studio. It was supplied by the studio as ?the only artwork we have.? On the surface it appeared pretty clean but upon closer examination (use the zoom tool) it was very pixilated. Also, by checking the image size (Image/Image Size) it looked to be high enough resolution. So why is it this low resolution and rough around the edges? Chances are the dance studio opened the file in Photoshop and didn?t notice that the default resolution was 72 dpi. But, in their case it didn?t matter because all they needed it for was their business card. They never knew they screwed up a nice little piece of art. The other problem is that the second file they supplied included type. Again, looks good until you zoom in and BAMB (figure 2). It ?ain?t what you thought!? And they want this going down the side of sweat pant legs! Large! OK, so ?they have what they have.? No use crying about it. The order is in hand and you have promised them shirts. There are a couple of ways you could deal with this. Yes, you could take this poor original into Corel Trace or Adobe Streamline, but those programs will give you poor results because they will trace ?around? the large (low resolution) pixels and it will still not be smooth. Re-create Image Fix it in Photoshop Adjust Resolution Apply Gaussian Blur Use a Tone Curve Re-Create Type in Vector Program Good luck, |