Photoshop Gurus: Cleaning Up A Jpeg?
 

Anybody got good tips or tutorial links to cleaning up a shitty JPEG? Somebody once told me PaintShopPro has a plugin or something to clean up artifacts in a JPEG. Anything like that for Photoshop?

I have some nice pix but the quality of the images aren't tour quality and I can't figure out a way to revive them.

thanks

It depends what you mean by cleaning it up... generally brightness/contrast is a good place to start - then fiddle with the hue and saturations (all found under the image-->adjustments panel). Adjusting the levels can also help. Photoshop can do it "automatically" for you - but it is probably best to do it manually.

Mutt,

PSP does have one built in.
Alien Skin Image Doctor has a JPEG repair tool also.

If ya have neither, ICQ Me.
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thanks DX, will ICQ u.

thanks Hamlet, i did those things, yes it helps but it needs more work than that.

Funny... I heard that terms "cleaned up" only today for the first time. But yeah I'd like to know if there's something that you can do a batch cleanup with. I have whole sets that could use probably the same manipulation and be a helluva lot better than they are.

by cleaned up, I took it as trying to fix the jpg compression artifacts.

I usually adjust the color levels, then use the 'sharpen' tool to make it a little more crisp.

I've been working with digital images for years now, and those artifacts are a pain to get rid of. The more you compress the image, the worse they look. A few things I have tried with relative success....

Add noise to the images. Maybe 1-3 %. I use Paint Shop Pro to do it on bad images, don't know how to do it in Photoshop.

Save your pictures at a higher quality. I usually save mine at quality of 12 in Photoshop, then tinker with them in Macromedia Fireworks at different compressions.

Adjust the bit rate of your video card. I use 16 bit as I WANT to see jpeg artifacts. If I can get the pictures decent in 16 bit, I know they will be great in 24. I have seen bad jpeg artifacts in 16 bit, and they disappear in 24 bit color.

Also, go to Google and do a search on JPEG artifacts. I remember a few years ago a filter (or program) that adjusts certain colors so the artifacts are less noticable. I think only a certain hue or something causes them.

I also noticed that jpeg artifacts are terrible with digital images. Images scanned from slides seem to have little, if any JPEG artifacts.