Brightening Up A Hard to Read Document in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements

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Sometimes digital images of documents are just hard to read – the paper is gray, the ink close to the same color, and often with ink bleeding through from the back.

Brightening up the document and sharpening up the words can sometimes make it easier to read  and hopefully find the clue that helps you break through a brick wall.

Sometimes it just takes a couple of minutes in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to clean it up. The steps are the same – just the commands and menus are in different places. So here are directions for both – I’m using Photoshop 2025 and Photoshop Elements 2023 on a Windows machine. I don’t know the commands on the MAC and don’t have an updated version of Photoshop Elements – so hopefully you can figure it out if my directions don’t match what you see on the screen.

Photoshop 2025

1. Open the Document
 


2. Use a Levels layer to adjust contrast.
    a. From the layers button on the Layers panel (half black/half white circle – Choose Levels
    b. In the Properties panel  - move the right arrow (white) under the histogram to the left to brighten things up. Use the middle arrow (gray) under the histogram to the left to brighten up a bit more. Do it until it looks better


3. Create a Stamp layer – this is an old command – not in the menus – Ctl-Alt-Shift -E it will show up as Layer 2 at the top of your layers panel
    a. Adjust the blending mode to Screen – Look towards the top of the layers panel for a box that says Normal with a dropdown arrow – click on the arrow  - choose Screen

4. Create another Levels layer like you did in Step one, move the right arrow to the left to brighten the background. If the text is getting faint – move the left arrow (black) to the right

5. Run a High Pass Filter to sharpen up the text if needed
    a. Create a stamp layer (see step 3)
    b. From the Filter menu – choose Other – then High Pass
    c. Set the radius to 4 – hit OK

    d. Set the blending mode to Soft Light (see step 4 for adjusting blending modes)


6. Flatten and save your image 
    a. From the Layer menu - choose flatten image
    b. From the File menu - choose save as - save with a different filename than your original image. Save as JPG

Photoshop Elements 2023


1. Open the Document
 




2. Use a Levels layer to adjust contrast.
    a. From the Layers button at the top right of the screen (half black/half white circle – Choose Levels
    b. In the Levels panel  - move the right arrow (white) under the histogram to the left to brighten things up. Use the middle arrow (gray) under the histogram to the left to brighten up a bit more. Do it until it looks better





3. Create a Stamp layer – this is an old command – not in the menus – Ctl-Alt-Shift -E it will show up as Layer 1 at the top of your layers panel
    a. Adjust the blending mode to Screen – Look towards the top of the layers panel for a box that says Normal with a dropdown arrow – click on the arrow  - choose Screen





4. Create another Levels layer like you did in Step one, move the right arrow to the left to brighten the background. If the text is getting faint – move the left arrow (black) to the right

5. Run a High Pass Filter to sharpen up the text if needed
    a. Create a stamp layer (see step 3)
    b. From the Filter menu – choose Other – then High Pass
    c. Set the radius to 4 – hit OK



   d. Set the blending mode to Soft Light (see step 4 for adjusting blending modes)


6. Flatten and save your image 
    a. From the Layer menu - choose flatten image
    b. From the File menu - choose save as - save with a different filename than your original image. Save as JPG

I'd like to thank Teri Flack and Kimberly Powell for asking about doing this and providing the image to work with. 

Patty Hankins
March 2025

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