Cleaning Up Art From Old Books

If you've followed the steps so far you have some photos of nice art on yellowing pages. Fixing this is like touching up old photographs, and you need a tool for that job. Photo Shop is NOT that tool.

The GIMP is that tool.

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)(I'm not crazy about the name either) is a free program that does everything Photo Shop does and probably more.

GIMP has a variety of filters available. One of the most useful is the White Balance filter. This automatically identifies the parts of your image that should be white, then adjusts the color so they are white. It adjusts every color in the picture the same way and the same amount. The effect of this filter is magic. It's like a fountain of youth for your old photos (color photos fade over time) and it works equally well on page images.

To get The Gimp go here:

http://www.gimp.org/

The White Balance Filter is found in the Colors menu under Auto.

archive.org has special equipment for photographing book pages that generally does a good job of keeping the pages aligned properly, but sometimes you get a crooked page. GIMP can help here too. In the Layer menu under the Transform menu is an option Arbitrary Rotation... This lets you rotate your image a few degrees in either direction until the page image is vertically aligned. You can use the edge of the rotation dialog as a guide to know when the image is vertical.

This is only the beginning of what GIMP can do. Not only can you make an old photo look new, you can make a new photo look old. Look under Filters, in the various sub menus, to see all the special effects you can do to your photos. The Old Photo filter could be useful for a cover for a western or a private eye novel set in the 30's.

It takes practice to get good with GIMP, but the results are worth it.

Using these techniques you should be able to make a decent cover image for an e-book. But suppose you want to publish a printed volume using Create Space? What then?

Stay tuned.