MAMEWorld Forums - MAME Artwork: Official - Re: Side Trak bezel WIP pic

> Any documenting as you go would be greatly appreciated.
> Software you are using.
>
> I'd really like to know how to clean up fine dot patterns like you've done here as I
> often have similar issues with cleanup with architecture work.

Photoshop used for everything.

This bezel took quite a bit of work to clean up, as it's mostly halftones. Where there was just a small scratch or color blemish, I used the clone stamp tool, and made sure that the halftone dots in the stamped area lined up with those in the area that needed fixing.

The scanned image had a number of vertical strips where the colors were lighter or darker, or there was a sharp dark line, or what looked like a crease in the actual bezel running from top to bottom. What I would usually do to fix these is select a clean vertical area to the right or left of the area to be replaced, with a feathered edge of a few pixels, copy and paste it. This creates a new layer with only this strip on it. Nudge it over until it covers the offending area, then fine-tune it if necessary by skewing or distorting until the halftones line up perfectly with the bezel artwork on the layer underneath.

The hardest part was fixing the bottom of the bezel, where something must have happened during the scan because that whole area is much darker than it should be, and the otherwise straight rows of halftones have a bit of waviness to them. I created a new layer and made a grayscale gradient, approximating the percentages of black that the original halftones should have been. After ascertaining the correct line screen and fiddling with the grayscale levels a bit, I turned the gradient into a halftone and knocked out the white background so only the black dots remained on the layer. I lined it up with the actual bezel halftones, which required a little fudging with scaling and placement. When I was satisfied with the alignment, I used layer style > color overlay, and eyedroppered the correct color. I also gave the halftone layer a very slight blur to match the existing bezel's halftones, they were too sharp otherwise.

Just two more steps left: one, paint in the correct orange background color over the darker orange color at the bottom, covering up the existing halftones in that area as well. Second, make a duplicate of the original bezel layer and remove everything except the train tracks at the bottom, then make this the topmost layer so it covers the new orange and halftone areas (actually, this step should have been done before the one above). Flatten image or combine layers once you're happy with the results, otherwise the number of layers can get out of hand.

Normally, when you're dealing with large areas of solid color that need to be fixed, you can just use the magic wand tool and some judicious modifying of the selection; then fill in with the appropriate color and you're done. Dealing with halftones is a different story if you want to keep the halftoned look; you have to tackle each area independently, as the dots can be a different size than those just 1/4" away. The good thing is that results don't have to be perfect; in fact, if you look close-up at halftones on bezels and marquees from the 80's you'll see a lot of halftone dots that are filled in, have some degree of dot gain, or are even missing, so the original printing has an imperfect look to it. Personally, I think that adds to the charm of the 30-year-old artwork.