Author Topic: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?  (Read 1843 times)

Offline Dottonedan

  • Administrator
  • Ludicrous Speed Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5907
  • Email me at art@designsbydottone.com
Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« on: August 21, 2012, 12:38:22 PM »
Speaking of art clean up tricks, (not that anyone was), but how about poor quality jpgs for CMYK?


I occasioanlly get art from customers who "got this art" from some customer...who wants it separated. Sometimes it's sim process and some times it's to be cmyk.


When you convert a rgb (low rez jpg), the compression can be horrible and once converted, can leave BLOCKS of compression or color break downs. Why or how it does te break dwon method, I do'ntknow, but the end result is that some of the colors (mostly yellow) will have those BLOCKS in it.


I ran across someone who thought they had a method to handle this but it didn't work. So, outside of doing a gaussion blurr,  does anyone know of any technique to improve on this?


Once it's a turd, it only stays a turd from my experience.



Artist & high end separator, Owner of The Vinyl Hub, Owner of Dot-Tone-Designs, Past M&R Digital tech installer for I-Image machines. Over 35 yrs in the apparel industry. e-mail art@designsbydottone.com


Offline ScreenFoo

  • Gonzo Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 1296
  • Semper Fidelis Tyrannosaurus
Re: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2012, 01:41:14 PM »
No firsthand experience, but I remember seeing an article a while back on cleaning up JPGS with a plug-in called 'Alien skin Image Doctor'. 

The JPG part of the plugin looked to me like what I already do--a combo of blurring and unsharp mask--makes for a cartoony, smooth, clean lined turd.  :)
Some of the other stuff looked kind of interesting though.

Offline mk162

  • Ludicrous Speed Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 7862
Re: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2012, 02:39:16 PM »
Dan, it is possible to polish a turd...

Mythbusters Polishing a Turd

Offline PixelPimp

  • Verified/Junior
  • **
  • Posts: 40
  • putting pixels to work since 1984
Re: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2012, 02:49:15 PM »
heya ScreenFoo!
yup that AlienSkinImageDoctor doesn't do much more then what you would do with filters (if i'm not mistaken, it's an action script so you could expand the action and see what steps it's using). There's some things you can do to improve and remove the jpg artifacts but it will only get so much better, as we all know, garbage in = garbage out. in most cases a compromise should be meet (by altering the design) or the art needs to be redrawn/created.

Offline Frog

  • Administrator
  • Ludicrous Speed Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 13980
  • Docendo discimus
Re: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2012, 02:55:39 PM »
Our friend, sponsor, and fellow Forum owner Scott over at T-Biz has an article on cleaning up crap in PS

http://t-biznetwork.com/computergraphics/improving-poor-photographic-images-in-photoshop/

He actually has one for Corel products as well
That rug really tied the room together, did it not?

Offline Sbrem

  • Ludicrous Speed Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 6055
Re: Poor quality jpgs for CMYK?
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2012, 03:49:50 PM »
PhotoZoom Pro does a decent job, depending on your expectations. Turds can take only so much polishing...

Steve
I made a mistake once; I thought I was wrong about something; I wasn't