De-screening methods?

[eran]

I'm sure we've always had to deal with removing a halftone screen from a scanned image. My method has always been either "Dust and Scratches" or "Median" in photoshop. This usually works well as long as no one is expecting miracles. It just so figures that I've now got a job with substantial enlargement involved and the desire of a miracle.
Anyone care to share their de-screening methods?

Thanks!

 

[Grnofslt]

Hey Eran,

Most scanners have a plug in that they install into a plug ins folder in Photoshop. This would be accessed by going to your file menu and choosing import and then choosing your scanner from the fly out menu that appears. Usually the control panel from your scanner's software has a descreening feature built in to it. There you choose the dots per inch (this is usually a guess) that you believe your image is and scan. Try a few different settings until you get one that looks good.

If your scanner isn't listed in the import menu, my suggestion would be to reinstall the driver software for the scanner and then look for the scanner in the import fly-out menu.

I hope this was helpful for you.

Bill

 

[eran]

Thanks for the reply, Bill. I always wrote that function off as something that would work to well. Unfortunately my scanner doesn't support its descreen function at the resolution/enlargement that I need! Crap! I tried it on a smaller scale and it works surprisingly well though. I can't wait to find a purpose to use it in the future.

 

[gordo]

You could buy a cheap scanner that has a descreen function or try this method:

With black & white halftones it's often best to use a scan that was done at twice the lpi of the print.

Original scan:

$60 scanner using desceen option (Epson V200)

Original scan with "Surface Blur" option in PShop applied (Radius 1, Threshold 255) followed with the "DeSpeckle" filter.

Sometimes it's best to do the despeckle on a copy layer of the Surface blurred image. Then change the opacity of the despeckled layer until you see what you need.

best gordon p

 

[gordo]

Here's the descreening process for a color image:

Original scan:

$60 scanner using desceen option (Epson V200)

Original scan with "Surface Blur" option in PShop applied (Radius 1, Threshold 61) followed with the "DeSpeckle" filter.

Sometimes it's best to do the despeckle on a copy layer of the Surface blurred image. Then change the opacity of the despeckled layer until you see what you need.

best gordon p

 

[Grnofslt]

Eran,

There is a 3rd party software available called VueScan. It is a genaric scanner software that has an excellent descreening mode. It also works with over 400 scanners since it was developed to keep old scanner functioning. I have been using it for years myself because of an old Nikon film strip scanner that Nikon no longer supports with software updates. There is also excellent controls throughout the interface and it is constantly being supported and upgraded. The pro version is well worth the moneyand works with a very large variety of scanners.

If you go to VueScan Scanning Software you can see if your scanner is supported by this software.