Scan signature to transparent background? 2

[jrpatdlgs]

I am a complete novice when it comes to photoshop so would appreciate any and all "detailed" suggestions and/or instructions.

Occasionally this office needs to place "signatures" on MSWord documents (ultimately converted to pdfs) for our web site. We usually obtain the sigs by scanning directly into Photoshop 6.0 where they can be resized appropriately for use. Problem is, the final output sigs need to be gifs on a transparent background so that things like underlines and labels already in the document can show through the signature.

I have been unable to figure out how to extract just the signature from the scan. The "white" pixels within the scanned sig cause less than satisfactory results when I try to extract the sig with the lasso tool or magic wand. I also have trouble because the scan comes into photoshop with the layer automatically locked and I cannot unlock it. Help --- please!

Thanks,
John

 

[SPYDERIX]

Hi,

Take a big piece of paper, do the signature in a thick pen and really big, scan it in at a high resolution and then goto SELECT > COLOR RANGE and set the fuzziness to 40 and click on the white parts on your ACTUAL image and hold shift while you do that. Then after you hit ok, the white will be selected, hit delete, then start to resize the image down so that it cleans the edges up a bit, Then save it as a .png and import it to M$ Word.

Hope this helps!

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[jimoblak]

I agree with spyderix concept of starting with a high resolution scan (although the big piece of paper may be too much). The key is to get rid of the white paper BG and then scale down to anti-alias the edges.

Let me take spyderix's tip one step further... make sure that the resolution of the final signature art is enough only for your immediate purpose - sampleit down to the lowest necessary resolution. Someone may want to swipe a high resolution signature from a PDF and stamp it on their own creations.

//

Double-click on the layer to unlock it. Scans come into photoshop as flattened art. Double-clicking on the 'background' quasi-layer will turn it into a real layer.

 

[SPYDERIX]

Ya making it the smallest resolution is a good idea, never thought of that.

jimoblak,

Is that your signature? Did you not know that trick, I thought I had mentioned it sometime before in some post and thought you posted something replying to that. Great trick none the less.

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[jrpatdlgs]

Thank you both for your helpful info. One last question: what do you consider to be a "high" resolution when scanning originals such as normally sized signatures?

 

[SPYDERIX]

Hi,

1200 DPI if you can, that's what I did, it allowed me to key out the white of the paper and remove impurities then when I shrunk it down it anti-aliased it so well and gave me a perfect signature. I would suggest no less than 600 DPI though.

Hope this helps!

http://www.spyderix-designz.com

 

[Eggles]

Personally I think that for a scanned signature to be placed in a Word doc to be ultimately PDF'ed, 600 dpi is overkill.

Scan the signature - normal size will do - at 300dpi as a B&W drawing. This will open it in PS as a 'bitmap' (all black or white pixels, with no greys). Duplicate the layer (that's another way of making the layer 'active'). Select the white background with the magic wand - delete it, and delete the original layer underneath. This should leave you with a black signature on a transparent background. Save as a GIF.

 

[jrpatdlgs]

Eggles,
Thanks much for the idea. I'm sorry to report that I cannot get it to work as you describe. When my Epson 1640XL scanner sends the "line art" sig to PS at 300 dpi it does indeed open as a bitmap. However ALL menu items (both under "Layer" and in the Layers Pallet) are greyed out -- you cannot duplicate a layer or do anything else to it! Could you have left out some simple step that my novice brain doesn't know about? My PS version is 6.0 in case that makes a difference.
Thanks again.
John

 

[dimoj]

Hi
Sorry to interept the question directed to Eggles but the step missed, jrpatdlgs, is:

With bitmap open click on image>mode>greyscale. Accept size ratio of one. Then go to image>mode>RGB colour. From there you can proceed as per Eggles instructions.

 

[jrpatdlgs]

Dimoj,
Thank you! Misson accomplished. Now I have two ways to deal with the sig problem.
John

 

[Eggles]

Whoops - yes sorry, forgot to include to change the image to greyscale mode first.

 

[Eggles]

dimoj

I have been thinking about your suggestion to convert the greyscale to RGB. You don't need RGB to duplicate the original layer. At the moment, I cannot see why you have suggested conversion to RGB, except perhaps it is necessary in order to save as a GIF?

 

[jrpatdlgs]

I've used both ways (Spyderix/Jimoblak and Eggles/Dimoj) and my guess is that final conversion to RGB allows you to use the "Select/ColorRange" technique which selects ALL of the white areas, including those contained within loops of the signature. The magic wand selects only contiguous white areas. If you want to include white areas within loops in the sig you have to go back and do each loop separately.

Thank you all, and to all a "good night" -- or in my case, a "good morning"!

John

 

[dimoj]

Actually, I only put the convert to RGB bit out of 'force of habit'. 95% of everything I do is RGB so I was just in automatic thinking mode when I typed that. (maybe I need to convert my brain to RGB)

D