: Extracting hand writing from a dark background Okay I am a complete novice when it comes to this but here goes. My partner who passed away recently wrote this wish on a paper boat for our

@Becky351

Hope this helps.
And here is a pointless bit of text to satisfy the character requirement

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@Annie732

If this is the max resolution you can get, It will be nearly impossible to accomplish what you want, Because of the bad quality of the picture. SO like @Mark Read said, get a high resolution scan of that paper. then:


Go to Photoshop, And expose the image enough so that the paper becomes white enough, but the writing stays visible. (You can use the "Levels Adjustment for that")
Then take the processed Photoshop image to Illustrator > Image trace. Look for the "trace options" and set it to "Outline", then press "Make". Illustrator will turn the image into vector, where the white part of the image will be completely white and anything else (In this case the handwriting) will be black.
Now the last step, will be up to you. You can clean the hole image up in Illustrator, or save the final image and clean it in Photoshop.


Thats the best way i would go with this. The selection tool/ Magic wand tool and refine edge, won't be very helpful, because the "Tolerance" of that tool is only accurate around subjects with good edges and enough contrast between to different colour tones for a good selection. But on your image is completely under one colour tone: BLUE. And contrast between the paper and the writing, is not really obvious for the tool to work properly. Or, it might work, but it will take you more time figuring out how to make cut perfectly, and not mess up the handwriting.

Would've done screen shots but I'm far from my machine.

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@Looi7658678

I'd recommend two things in Photoshop:
1. Try using the Quick Selection Tool and see if you can select the handwriting. You can refine your selection by going to the top menu: Select> Select and mask. Play with the options there.
2. If you have a tablet like a Wacom you can "trace" the writing with the pen. You would have to be somewhat comfortable using the pressure-sensitive pen.

If you really don't know how to use graphics programs at all, I would recommend asking someone knowledgeable you know to help you out.

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