Field guide
Make a faint scan legible
Legibility comes from separating paper and ink, not from maximum sharpness. A good scan keeps thin strokes while making the background quiet.
01
Set black and white points from representative ink and clean paper, leaving room for light pen strokes and stamps. Clipping them cannot be undone later.
02
Correct uneven illumination before increasing global contrast. A dark page corner otherwise becomes solid grey while the bright centre looks acceptable.
03
Use a small-radius sharpening pass only after tone is stable. Watch the interiors of letters such as e, a and 8; closing those counters reduces readability.
04
Export a lossless or high-quality master before making a small upload copy. Text suffers quickly from repeated JPEG ringing around every stroke.