Replace Paper Dial

[Yorkie]

I use an old copy of Photoshop 'Elements 4' (current edition id Elements 11), and even with my limited skills, have fount it quite useful for tidying up dial scans and PCB artwork. Whether you use that or a similar program, firstly, if you scan in the dial, you can then change the background to white, which will no doubt leave various marks which will need to be cleaned up. You can then use the 'eraser' tool - the width of which you can select to either erase large smudgy areas, or right down to one pixel for precision. Similarly, to repair or fill in missing areas (on text for example) you can use the paintbrush tool, selecting the colour that you want - black or whatever.

The other tool that often comes in handy is the 'clone stamp tool' which enables you to copy part of a dial and replicate it elsewhere - if part of the dial background is missing for example.

This sort of software is primarily intended to clean up photos or to repair scans of damaged photos, but is fine for what we want to do.

I tend to do a bit at a time as it can be hard on the eyes peering into the screen for hours on end. You can either overwrite your first scan, or save the amended version with a new name and save your first scan

As Gary says, whatever program you use - freebie or not, there are no magic shortcuts, but the end results can be rewarding.

Sometimes such software comes free bundled with printers or digital cameras. Often, older obsolete versions can be found free or cheap on internet.

As to posting pics on the forum, it's much easier to do than to explain but it literally takes only a minute or so once you've got the hang of it. I usually reduce the size of mine to about 15cams to get the files size down to about 250kB, but as has been said, this forum isn't too restrictive on file size. The only slight downside is that when you review your post to make sure that the pics have been attached, you can't actually see the pics - just a little box with a red x in it.

Hope you'll be able to post a copy of the dial - no-one will get shirty with you if you mess up a post - it's just not the style of this forum to try to boss people around.


Best of luck, and enjoy the forum!