Restoring Plans Photoshop PDF
Restoring Plans Photoshop PDF
Restoring Plans Photoshop PDF
by
Rufus Carswell
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
After more than ten years and over four thousand five hundred plans prepared and restored in
Photoshop I have developed a procedure that gives the best plans in the smallest file size. Many have
asked that I help them learn how to do this so I have prepared written step-by-step directions
covering the procedure.
I will be using Photoshop CS3 Extended, version10. For those of you using earlier or later versions of
Photoshop the instructions should be the same with maybe an occasional change. My experience
with Photoshop is that the basic functions we will call upon appear to exist in all but the maybe
earliest versions. These instructions should also work for GIMP and GIMPSHOP, both free open
source software available at
• GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/
• GIMPSHOP http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294
GIMPSHOP is essentially GIMP reworked to imitate the look and feel of Photoshop. I expect the
outlined procedures can be accomplished in both programs, however the buttons and menus may be
different.
For those of you that would like Photoshop, the latest version is around $675 (USD). There are a few
who stoop to free pirated versions by downloading a peer-to-peer program like BitTorrent
(http://www.bittorrent.com/), then going to a free proxy server
(http://www.publicproxyservers.com/proxy/list_rating1.html) that contacts one of the pirate program
websites (http://thepiratebay.org/) anonymously. They then search the pirate website for
“Photoshop”. This is illegal and These people should be ashamed.
SCANNING
Scanning is straight forward and needs only a little description. As scanners and the
accompanying scan programs vary, just follow their directions. Square up the copy (plan) as
best you reasonably can on the scanner. If its a little crooked its O.K. All scans will be
straightened up in Photoshop. Scan at a resolution of 300 DPI (dots per inch) in GRAYSCALE
format. Many scanners call this “black and white photo”. Be sure to OVERLAP your scans by at
least 1/4”. 1” or so is better as some scanners tend to have a little distortion out near the
edges. With a little more overlap we can trim off the distortion.
MY DIRECTIONS
I will put the selections to click on in Photoshop in PARENTHASES beginning with the File, Edit, Image,
Layer, Select, Filter, View, Window selection at the top of the Photoshop screen. From there I will lead
you step-by-step through the procedure. For example:
(Image – Mode – Grayscale) means locate the IMAGE menu at the very top of the Photoshop
screen, click on it, then locate EDIT in the open menu column and click on it. When the
little window opens select GRAYSCALE and click on it.
FIXING ERRORS
Errors can easily be fixed in Photoshop by backing up one or more steps and re-doing the procedure
(Edit – Step Backward). Be aware that you can go back quite a number of steps but that number is
limited.
I also strongly recommend that you save your work to file frequently. Computers seem to crash or
the power goes out at the most inconvenient times.
We will open all of the scans for the plan in Photoshop. I assume you can do this without instruction.
Then we will make a CANVAS (work area) that will be large enough to arrange all of your scans in
rough order as they will be assembled with some extra room to shift them some.
Note that each scan will be on its own LAYER. Some people have a problem imagining this “layer”
arrangement. Just read the Photoshop instructions about “layers” and keep at it until you get it. This is
important.
Next we will straighten each scan so it is square with the screen. Once all of the scans are all
straight we will trim the edges for a clean overlap. Then we will carefully connect each scan with the
adjacent one with all of the plan lines precisely aligned.
At this point you will probably find one or more scans to be a very slight amount larger or smaller
than the connecting scan. This isn't unusual as scanners aren't that precise. We will adjust the vertical
and/or horizontal size of the scan a touch so the images will align perfectly. Even so, occasionally we
will have to slightly shift individual pieces of the drawing a pixel or two or three to get everything to
line up. Really, its not as hard as it appears. Don't quit now.
Once each scan is square to the screen, is in in position, and is accurately aligned with its adjacent
scan, we will use the “FLATTEN” command to collapse the layers into one single layer making the
various scans into a full plan all on one sheet.
Here we begin the step-by-step instructions to accomplish what I have described above:
1. First of all, your scanner will scan all black and white images into Photoshop in “indexed
color” mode (whatever this is). You cannot do much work in this mode so you must convert
all of your plan scans to grayscale. (Image – Mode – Grayscale) Grayscale is simply a
black and white image that includes all shades of gray in between.
2. Prepare a “canvas” large enough for you to easily manipulate all of your scans by taking one
of your scans and enlarging its “canvas”. (Image, Canvas Size) Now save this to a newly
named file. I always save as a .TIF file.
3. Drag all of your plan scans over into the large “canvas” and roughly arrange them in place.
Be sure to leave each to its own layer.
4. Next square each scan to the screen. To do this you must first make a “straightedge” to
square to.
B. Now using your Rectangular Marquee Tool at the very top left button in the Tools bar
(Window – Tools) to make a long, thin horizontal box. Then fill the box with black (Edit – Fill –
Black). You now have a horizontal straightedge on its own layer that you can use to bring all of your
scans square to the screen.
C. Now select the scan you want to straighten by moving the mouse cursor over the selected scan,
then right-click the mouse button and select the name of the layer and click on it. (Note: if you have
multiple layers beneath the mouse cursor, the layers names shown will be in the order of the layers
beneath the mouse cursor.) Double check that you have selected the correct layer by using your
mouse cursor (left click on the mouse, hold button down) to move the layer a little bit. If it doesn't
move, you need to re-select the layer.
D. Using the left mouse button and holding it down, drag the straightedge over atop the scan
where there is a line on the plan that should be horizontal. I like to use the centerlines on plans
wherever possible. Align one end of the straightedge with the centerline. If your scan is out of square
it should show up here. You now need to rotate the entire scan until the centerline on the plan and
the straightedge are aligned.
At this point I am going to explain the term “Focus” as it is used in Photoshop so I don't have to
constantly explain it over and over. After this I will assume you understand this and the term “Focus”
will be used without explanation. “ Focus” means the selection of the layer you want to work on. As
each scan is on its own layer at this point, you must tell the computer whenever you shift from one
layer to another which layer you want to use. We will be shifting back and forth from layer to layer as
we work, or “changing Focus”. This is done by placing the mouse cursor over the position on the plan
you wish to work on and right-click the mouse button. A little window will open up showing the
names of the layers beneath the mouse cursor and their order. To select the layer you want to work on,
left-click the mouse button on the layer name you want. You will have to do this every time you
change layers.
E. Change the Focus to the scan to be straightened. We will now rotate the scan to align it with the
straightedge by by the “rotate” command (Edit – Transform – Rotate). You will notice the scan now
has a box around it with a small box at each corner and a small box at the mid-point of each side. At
the exact center of the scan will be a very small bullseye-like circle. I will probably be difficult to find
with all of the other lines on the plan but it will be there. This bullseye is the point of rotation and this
point of rotation can be moved around. Use your mouse cursor to drag the bullseye around until it
rests over where the straightedge and the plan centerline meet at one end of the straightedge. Now
left-click and hold down the mouse cursor on one of the little corner boxes and drag the corner of
the scan around until the plan centerline and the straightedge are aligned. Your scan should now be
properly squared to the screen. Do this to each of the scans. To set the rotation permanent, just use
your cursor to click on one of the top two tools on the tool bar. This will bring up a little window that
asks if you want to apply the transformation. Click “yes”.
5. Now that all of your scans are squared to the screen (and I assume your scans are
overlapping the adjacent scan), trim the edges of each scan back some to get a clean edge
with no white border but make sure you leave an overlap. To do this, Focus on one of the
scans, then make a box with the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the Toolbox that is long or
wide enough to make the trim, place the box over one of the scan edges in the proper
position to make the trim, then hit the “Delete” key on your keyboard.
The plan I have selected to assemble and restore was scanned from a 1938 issue of Model Airplane
news and was found on the Internet. Its resolution is less than I would prefer – 120 DPI (dots
per inch) - however it was a relatively clean scan. Resolution is very important. It is the one
thing you can rarely improve upon. This one looks like I can improve the plan and end up with
a clear, crisp plan. We will see. Also, as is typical of the old magazine plans it is pieced
together over multiple pages and there are no overlaps. For this reason I will use two adjacent
scans from another plan to demonstrate how to match up two overlapping scans. Then we will
return to this plan.
As I mentioned above, this demonstration is from another plan, a peanut Fairey Fantome drawn
by Pres Bruning. There are three overlapping scans that need to be joined. The scans have
been squared to the screen
The screen capture below shows the three scans trimmed and ready for joining.
To make the join you need to find a point at the top of the scan where there will be an
overlap of the adjacent scan that has a nice vertical and horizontal component to it – I look
for a piece of type like an L, B, T, etc. or some fine point of the design. This gives you a target
to align to. An example:
Now look for a similar point at the bottom of the scan.
Locate these same points on the matching scan you will join to and cut little pieces out so you
can match this scan when it is layered over the opposing scan.
6. Now slide this scan over the adjacent (left) scan and match the selected components of each
scan at the top only. You will notice the bottom component may not match at this point.
1. If the bottom point does not match up, click on the right scan to make sure the “Focus”
is on that layer, then you proceed to rotate the right scan into alignment in the following
manner.
A. Do the “rotate” command (Edit, Transform, Rotate) as follows: When the rotate
command bar appears at the top of the screen look for a little chain symbol and
click on it. The “Chain” button makes the image retain its original aspect ratio. Then
look at the adjacent scan image. There will be a square dotted line around the
image. In the middle of this square will be a small “bull’s-eye” that denoted the
center of rotation. Sometimes its hard to see, but its there. Slide your cursor over this
bulls-eye and hold down the left mouse button while moving the bulls-eye over the
top selected components that are matched, then let up. You have just moved the
center of rotation over this point.
7. Now move your cursor to one corner of the dotted square line or to an edge of the square
line. Holding the left mouse button down, you can now rotate the entire right scan so the
lower point can be brought into alignment.
8. You may find the two lower selected components may not quite align correctly as one scan
is ever so slightly larger or smaller than the other. Don’t’ worry, there is a fix. Just align them
as best you can in the vertical or horizontal plane and let the other plane go for now.
9. To set the rotation permanent, just use your cursor to click on one of the top two tools on
the tool bar. This will bring up a little window that asks if you want to apply the
transformation. Click “yes”.
10. You now have your two overlapping scans exactly matching each other . . . unless you have
your right scan a touch larger or smaller than the left scan. If that is the case, here is the fix.
11. Making sure your “focus” is still on the right scan layer, select the “Scale” feature. (Edit,
Transform, Scale). When the Scale features bar appears at the top of the screen, make sure
the “chain” button is in the unlocked position, then zoom in on the lower selected
components that have the miss-match problem. When zooming in, be sure to use ONLY
your keyboard buttons (Ctrl + or Ctrl -) and not your mouse, or you will turn off the scale
feature. If that happens, just bring it up again. Try to arrange it so the lower overlapping
selected components and the lower dotted line of the “scale” feature are both visible on the
screen. Now place the cursor on the lower dotted line and, while holding down the left
mouse button, move the dotted line up or down ever so slightly until the selected
components align in the vertical plane (you should have them already aligned in the
horizontal plane when you did the rotation). When they are aligned, move the cursor over
one of the two top tool buttons and click, thus bring up that little window asking if you want
to apply the transformation. Click “yes”.
12. Now you have the two scans in perfect alignment, but still on two different layers. If you
have more scans to assemble, continue on using the same procedure. If you are finished, you
need to collapse the layers into one layer (Layer, Flatten Image). Its wise to do a save” at this
point.
13. Now that your plan is assembled, you need to do a final straightening to get it square with
the screen. (1) Make a straightedge. - To rotate a component or an entire drawing to be
square with the screen, make a straightedge to place next to the part to be rotated. Move
your “focus” to the background and select a nice white area with some room. Use the
Rectangular Marquee Tool to shape a long, thin horizontal (or vertical) rectangle. When you
have the shape you want, click on (Edit, Fill). A window will come up. Tell it to use the
foreground color (black) and click “O.K.”. You now have a nice thin black rectangle with a
dotted line around it showing it is highlighted. Now click on (Edit, Cut), then (Edit, Paste).
That black rectangle in now on its own layer. You can slide it anywhere you want to use as
an aligning tool.
14. To rotate the plan, change the “Focus” to the plan layer (Mouse right-click – select
Background). Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to outline a box around the entire plan to
indicate what is to be rotated. Use the “Rotate” feature as described before. You can also
type in the degree of rotation if you want in one of the little windows of the “Rotation” tool
bar. Or – you can use the “Rotate Canvas” feature (Image, Rotate Canvas). When finished
with the Rotate. I advise saving the file at this point. When the plan is square to the screen
you can proceed to do some basic clean up of the white background of the plan using the
Eraser tool on the toolbar.
15. Dropping backgrounds
At this point we want to clean up all of the little blemishes on the plan – tiny black dots, fold lines
from a folded plan, etc. We do this by forcing all of the white areas of a plan to a pure white
and forcing all of the black areas of the plan to a pure black. This has to be done in stages to
keep the details we want on the plan but remove most, if not all, of the blemishes. Each plan
seems to have its own problems and we have to use various procedures to deal with them.
When we finish, there are almost always some blemishes that can only be removed by hand-
erasing what is left. A tedious task but a necessary one to have a nice result. As we will be
dealing in shades of black, white, and gray, screen captures won't be of much help so I will
omit these and only rely on verbal description.
There are various tools in Photoshop we use to do this and most are located in the Image-
Adjustment menu. They are “Brightness/Contrast”, “Curves”, and “Posterize”. Note the
“Curves” may require that you click on “Show All Menu Items” at the very bottom of the
Image-Adjustment menu to view the “Curves” tool.
This is all I can tell you. You are on you own. Good luck!
3. .DXF files
Older versions ofPhotoshop won’t open .DXF files, however there are some downloadable programs
that will convert a .DXF file to a graphic file. When doing this I usually convert to a .TIF file. When
working with a .DXF file converted to a .TIF file in Photoshop you usually find the lines of the drawing
to be so thin that they can barely be seen. There is a cure for this. You can make lines thicker (or
thinner) by using a the Photoshop “Stroke” feature.
• Select your Magic Wand tool and remove the check from the Contiguous box in the
options bar at the top of the screen.
• Click on one of the black lines of the drawing. You may have to zoom in some.
• All of the black lines of the drawing should be highlighted now.
• At this point we are going to command the computer to outline these black lines
with one or more layers of pixels with a little trick I developed using the “Stroke”
command.
• With the black lines highlighted, select the Stroke function (Edit, Stroke) and the
Stroke options window will open. Set the width at one or two pixels (or whatever
works for you) and the Locations option to Outside. Make sure the Color is the
same as the line. If not, You will have to back out of the Stroke feature, then change
it by referring to your Tool Bar and selecting the Background/Foreground color
boxes (the two overlapping boxes toward the bottom of your Tool Bar.) by left-
clicking on it. Your Color Selection window will open. Select the blackest black you
can and close it. This should set your foreground color to black.
• When the foreground color is black, go back into the Stroke feature and proceed
again.
• When everything is set in the Stroke options window, click O.K. and the computer
will outline all black lines on your image with the thickness of the number of pixels
you commanded.
• Should you make an error, just use your (Edit, Step Backwards) command to set
thing right again and start over.
Select "Image" at the top of the screen and click on "Canvas Size", and in the
window that opens change the "Height" and "Width" to be larger than the estimated
finished plan size by about 20%. Be generous. You will crop the final plan back to its
final size when you are finished with it. It is better for the working area to be too
large than too small when you are doing the enlargement. For our instruction we
will change the "Height" to 40 inched and the ""Width" to 60 inches. At the bottom
of the window in the box labeled "Anchor" click on the bottom-right arrow. This will
put the plan at the bottom-right corner of the working area. Click on "O.K." If the
borders of the new working area are outside of the window containing the plan
reduce the scale of the plan window by holding down the "Control" key on the
keyboard and pressing the "Minus" key at the far right of your keyboard until you
can see the entire working area.
• We now need to move the 36 inch measuring bar over to the plan window.
• Go to the measuring bar and use the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" (on the very top-
left of the tool bar) to select the measuring bar. Now place the cursor outside of the
top-left of the measuring bar, hold down the left button the mouse, and drag the
cursor over to the outside of the lower right corner of the measuring bar, then
releasing the mouse button. The measuring bar will now be "selected". You can
either (1) drag the measuring bar over to the plan screen or (2) use the "copy and
paste" method to move the bar. I am going to assume you know these functions.
Now the measuring bar will be on a separate layer of the plans screen.
• We are now ready to do the actual re-sizing of the plan.
In the plan screen place the measuring bar in the approximate position the wing will be in when the
plan is enlarged. To do this select the "Move Tool" from the Tool Bar (top-right of the Tool Bar) and
place the cursor directly over the measuring bar. Click on the right mouse button. A small window
will come up showing the layers beneath the cursor. If you haven't created any other layers the base
layer containing the plan will be Layer 1 and the layer containing the measuring bar will be Layer 2. .
Now that we are sure we are dealing with the layer that contains the measuring bar, place the cursor
over the measuring bar and hold down the left button of the mouse. While holding down the button,
drag the measuring bar to the approximate final position of the wing as mentioned above.
• With the measuring bar in position, we now need to enlarge the plan so the wing
width matches the width of the measuring bar.
Select the plan layer by moving the cursor over the plan screen and clicking the left
mouse button. In the litle window that comes up click and select Layer 1 (or
whatever layer that contains the plan). Now select the "Rectangular Marquee Tool"
(top-left of Tool Box) and like you did to select the measuring bar, place the cursor
outside of the top-left of the plan, hold down the left button the mouse, and drag
the cursor over to the outside of the lower right corner of the plan, then release the
mouse button. The plan will now be "selected".
• With the plan selected, select "Edit" at the top of the computer screen, then click on
"Transform". A small window will open up. Select "Scale" in the window. Two things
will happen. (1) a boundary line will show around the plan where you selected it.
The boundary line will have eight little boxes on it, one at each corner and one in
the middle of each boundary line. (2) a menu bar will appear at the top of the
screen which among other things shows a link of chain in the middle with "Width" to
the left of the chain link and "Height" to the right of the chain link. These are
important. The "Width" and "Height" show the percent of enlargement (or reduction)
of that dimension, the chain link allows you to link the two dimensions to main the
aspect ratio of the item to be scaled. You need to click on the chain link to make
sure "Width" and "Height" are linked.
• With the aspect ratio now linked, place your cursor over the little box at the top left
of the boundary line around the plan, hold down the left mouse button, and drag
the little box to the top-left of the plan working area until the plan is enlarged so the
wing width is approximately the width of the measuring bar. When this is done,
release the mouse button. The wing will most likely be close to the measuring bar
but not directly under the measuring bar. To move the plan directly under the
measuring bar, move the mouse cursor over the plan and hold down the left mouse
button. Drag the plan so one end of the wing is directly over the corresponding end
of the measuring bar and carefully align the end of the wing tip to the end of the
measuring bar. It might help to come close, then release the mouse button and use
the cursor buttons (up, down, left, right) on the keyboard to bring the wingtip and
end of the measuring bar into alignment.
• With one end of the wing aligned with the measuring bar, we need to continue
enlarging/reducing the plan scale by dragging on the corners of the boundary line.
Be sure to use only the corners, not the boxes in the centers of the boundary lines.
Dragging on the boxes in the centers of the boundary lines will change the aspect
ratio of the scaling and mess everything up. Then you will have to start the
enlargement process allover again.
• You will have to keep fiddling with scale adjustments and shifting the plan around
using the keyboard cursors until the wing is positioned so the end of each wingtip is
exactly over the ends of the measuring bar.
• When all is correct, to end the scaling process move the mouse cursor over to the
Tool Bar and click on the Move Tool (or any other tool). A window will open asking
"Apply this transformation?" If what you have done is correct click on "Apply" and
your plan is now re-scaled! It might take the computer a moment to do the
calculations. Now we need to remove the measuring bar.
• To remove the measuring bar we need to select the layer it it on.
Place the mouse cursor directly over the measuring bar and click on the right mouse button. In the
little window that comes up click on the layer containing the measuring bar (the 2nd layer in our
project). That layer is now active. Now to be sure we have selected the correct layer I always place
the cursor over the measuring bar, hold down the left mouse button, and move the measuring bar
around a touch. If it doesn't move, you have made an error selecting the layer. As layers are invisible,
this is easy to do. With the measuring bar layer selected, go to the top of the computer screen and
click on "Layer", then "Delete", and in the little window that comes up click on "Delete". The
measuring bar and its layer will disappear.
• Your plan is now re-scaled to a 36 inch wingspan. From here on all you need to do
is crop the plan to size to get rid of the excess white space around the outside and
you are done. It wasn't so bad, was it!