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High tech devices for enhancing images?
logger7
Posts: 10,010 ✭✭✭✭✭
Are there high tech devices for enhancing photographs/scans of coins on the internet? I would think that could give a potential buyer/bidder an advantage over others. Also does quality of eyeglasses or acuity of vision affect grading ability?
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Most image editing software has features which will correct colors, increase contrast, sharpen, detect edges, and minimally enlarge.
The stuff you see on TV/movies which zooms in from a fuzzy photo to read previously invisible text is basically fiction.
Of course visual acuity affects grading ability. It's certainly behind experience knowledge in importance, but absolutely essential.
But read the license plate off a reflection from the eyeball of an owl? No problem.
OK, not a license plate, but I'm the one in the middle.
Keeper of the VAM Catalog • Professional Coin Imaging • Prime Number Set • World Coins in Early America • British Trade Dollars • Variety Attribution
You can fix some bad photos using photoshop. I have done that before to trying and get a better feel for what bad eBay pics really should look like.
Any enhancement of a picture, is just that, you are improving an image...that does not mean you are increasing the accuracy of said picture....Cheers, RickO
No... the data has to be there for the image enhancement effects to improve the image.
Now there may be data there, given how most pictures are displayed (at less than full size).
Take a random eBay listing, e.g. http://www.ebay.com/itm/182330837213. When you first show the listing, the image is about 1/3 sized as you can see by downloading the 1066x1600 image and opening in an editor. Even when you click to show the detail it's not 100%. You can also use eBay's zoom to see 100% sections of the file.
But once you start applying filters, sharpening the image, zooming beyond 100% - there is equally a risk of introducing artifacts that aren't actually present on the coin.
ANA 50+ year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Author: 3rd Edition of the SampleSlabs book, https://sampleslabs.info/
Proof Buffalo Registry Set
Capped Bust Quarters Registry Set
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The ultimate photo adjustment is a return policy.
If the information isn't there, you can enhance a photo, but not get any more detail out of it. A crappy pic is a crappy pic.
On the other hand, if it's a detailed, but slightly out of focus or out of exposure picture/negative/positive (slide), you would be surprised how much you can fix the image with the right tools. I've saved a lot of old 35mm images when I did my rescan project of all my negs and slides.
And I wouldn't be surprised if you could enhance many images on ebay, if the seller didn't know how to reduce an image in the first place.
I have used photoshop numerous times to buy from eBay photos, a great tool that can make you money.
Reminds me a little of how they fixed the Hubble telescope with a correcting lens.
I find the most helpful thing is to adjust white balance when possible and necessary.