Hello
I just came back home from hospital.
I had a heart valve surgery march 5.
Now i made a photo from my medication plan and want to print it so i can make notices on it.
All copies i get are way to dark so i can`t read it.

Do you guys have an i do how i get a good copy of it and which app i need
I tried gimp, xnview and OpenOffice calc.

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

  • brent and Axios replied to this.

  • MikeK61 pdfs really can't be edited well outside some proprietary tools (like adober distiller etc)
    . you can save the pdf as postcript or print it to jpeg etc and have something easier to work with.
    I think having a big bright pic of your meds is necessary. Convert the PDF to something workable you should be fine.

      MikeK61 if your source document (you said a hard copy photograph? or digital pdf?) is not bright, or dark, then your chosen app will inherit this condition and can only slightly improve it.

      what is the source doc of your medication plan?

          if it's hard copy you may be able to control your outcome with a scanner, and it's settings.

          if it's digital then convert to a jpeg (pdf's are basically uneditable) and you need to make some moves in gimp
          (https://superuser.com/questions/622950/is-there-a-way-to-increase-the-contrast-of-a-pdf-that-was-created-by-scanning-a in this case imagmagick.)

          another way to brighten, if a dark pdf, is to save as jpeg/or postscript and import to Scribus (repo) in which they would have conventional indesign settings.

          you can get what you want depends on your source doc

          MikeK61 Any image editor will let you adjust picture briteness
          I pulled up xnview on my machine it can lighten an image.

            brent what is the source doc of your medication plan?

            The original is a sheet of paper.
            Like i wrote i made a picture of it and it looks the same.

                MikeK61 I asked if you had a jpeg and it appears like you do.
                And you took a perfect picture of something that was dark almost unreadable as it is? I'm still guessing.
                But you have a jpeg and you could not make it brighter in gimp or xnview?

                I stand by all my suggestions for a jpeg and would add if you could find some imagemagick terminal commands that might do as well.
                the jpeg exists to be manipulated, I wonder why it's not working?
                you should be able to remove layers and enhance clarity/brightness.
                I know I could do this in photoshop/illustatror back in the day, so why are the linux equivalents not working?

                maybe take a picture of your piece of paper again with as many powerful lights as you can, that way you'd be starting with an advantage?

                darktableor fotoxx in repo could work?

                  Sorry i saved it as PDF because it is a document.
                  I got it with gimp.
                  Sometimes i don`t see a tree in the woods.

                  Thank you very much.

                    MikeK61 pdfs really can't be edited well outside some proprietary tools (like adober distiller etc)
                    . you can save the pdf as postcript or print it to jpeg etc and have something easier to work with.
                    I think having a big bright pic of your meds is necessary. Convert the PDF to something workable you should be fine.

                      what i would do is to recreate it in a document, LibreOffice Word or LibreOffice Calc for example, It could be tedious but works

                      • [deleted]

                      • Post #10
                      • Edited

                      You need good lighting for the photo, preferably without any shadows falling on the paper. Keep it in an image format (jpg/png) and open it in GIMP. Then you can try if the Stretch contrast tools in Colors -> Auto give a desired result. If not, then you can try adjusting the levels manually with Colors -> Levels.

                      If you want it truly black/white before printing, try playing with Colors -> Threshold.

                      And the obvious answer: If you have to deal often with paper documents, invest in an all-in-one printer (preferably laser) that can do photocopies 😉

                      Very good suggestions there.
                      How do i set a best answer ?
                      IIRC it was easy before.

                      You need the "Support" tag to select a best answer. Try now.