Enhancing a photo, CSI-style

March 26, 2012 9:35 AM

My dad recently found this old photo (apologies for the .bmp - that's how it was sent to me), but we've been unable to identify where/when it was taken. There is a kid in the front row holding a chalkboard on which is presumably written the name of the school and year, but it's faded a lot. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I might enhance the text on the chalkboard to make it legible?
posted by chumptastic to Computers & Internet (19 answers total)

I can get it to juuuuuust about show enough, but I can't read it. =/ The right-hand side of the text is tricky.

The top line appears to be initials
posted by kaseijin at 9:42 AM on March 26, 2012

The easiest way to manipulate photos that I've found is Picasa - free photo program from Google. it doesn't offer the fine control that photoshop does - instead, it offers easy manipulation of brightness, contrast, etc. I have used it extensively to enhance written material in photographs of manuscripts.

However, what Picasa - or any program - can do is limited to what was recorded on the original film. If the board is completely over-exposed, the information isn't there to be retrieved.
posted by jb at 9:44 AM on March 26, 2012

If this is a scan from an existing photograph, you may be able to get more data from scanning only the chalkboard and enhancing the contrast in your scanning software.
posted by demiurge at 9:51 AM on March 26, 2012

It could be from Europe and could be in a language other than English. I tried in Picasa, couldn't get anything legible. Great photo!
posted by mareli at 11:04 AM on March 26, 2012

Response by poster: I'm nearly positive it's from Ontario, Canada. I think the first line reads SS6 (as in school section #6 - rural schools in Ontario used to be called SS's).
posted by chumptastic at 11:13 AM on March 26, 2012

The best I could do in 5 minutes of fiddling with levels in GIMP, but I'm having trouble actually reading anything, maybe it will help someone else out. GIMP is free by the way.
posted by juv3nal at 12:03 PM on March 26, 2012

This is all I got after a few minutes of photoshop. Second line... Morning? Manning? I don't think the information is there in the file.
posted by cmoj at 12:23 PM on March 26, 2012

oh weird, my imgur url doesnt seem to be loading for me now, try this link maybe?.
posted by juv3nal at 12:52 PM on March 26, 2012

Can you scan it at a higher resolution?
posted by rhizome at 1:04 PM on March 26, 2012

Response by poster: I don't have the original image, but I will ask my dad if he can - I think he said it was scanned at the highest resolution possible, but I'll double check.
posted by chumptastic at 1:09 PM on March 26, 2012

Response by poster: Apparently that's the best we can do.
posted by chumptastic at 1:20 PM on March 26, 2012

The middle part of the bottom line is a date: either "13th" or "16th", with the "th" underlined.
posted by Petrot at 2:19 PM on March 26, 2012

Best answer: And I believe the year after the date is: '28
posted by Petrot at 2:22 PM on March 26, 2012

Best answer: Last line: Class ... 28
posted by fifilaru at 4:09 PM on March 26, 2012

I've got:

S2?
Kennedy [something], or the first word could be __nn_dgy perhaps
Williamsburg (pretty sure on this).
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:49 PM on March 26, 2012

I see:

SS6 65
           A
Meminy-35  p
             36
Self 28 of 38?
   ___________

posted by retypepassword at 4:53 PM on March 26, 2012

Don't forget to factor in the year there was that mandatory haircut for the girls.
posted by thinkpiece at 6:15 PM on March 26, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions - the combination of SS6 + the year 1928 were keys to figuring this out. I'm pretty sure that this school is located in Manvers Township in Ontario (near Bethany), and the photo includes my grandfather (back row, second from the left), which is pretty cool because I've never seen a photo of him before the age of 20 before. The girl in the front row, far left, may also be my great aunt, but I'm not sure.

I still don't know what the text of the chalkboard says in its entirety, but I think it's something like:
SS6
(either the teacher's name, or the name of the school)
Class ___ '28

Thanks again for the help - this is great!
posted by chumptastic at 6:24 AM on March 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not saying to scan at a higher resolution, my advice is to adjust the contrast while scanning so that more useful bits of information occur on the chalkboard. Granted, this takes some sophistication in the use of the scanning software, but narrowing down the scanning window so it only scans the chalkboard and then adjusting the brightness and contrast of the scan could help. If this is important, you can probably take it to a photo store and see if they can do a high quality (perhaps more than 8-bit) scan.
posted by demiurge at 7:32 AM on March 27, 2012