Barnes Panel DStretch'd (ybk)
Finally, if you've got a really faint pictograph panel on a fairly uniform background, and you really want to know what's there (and don't mind the colors going the way of anodized titanium jewelry!) spend some time playing with DStretch (www.dstretch.com/). It doesn't always work for me, but in this case it really did.
For this I started with the jpeg off the camera (the first image I posted in this series), used ybk which was the best at picking out the pigment, and auto contrast. And that's all, no other processing, probably 5 minutes work max (just trying out the different options). We're pretty close to the level of detail on the cover of the Barnes book. (And some of the closeups I've taken a quick look at using the same method are well beyond that level of detail.) You should look at this at the original size if you want to get an idea of the amount of detail DStretch is recovering. The stuff along the right end of the panel is nearly invisible in the other shots, here's the clearest part of the panel.
For a few more DStretch examples, see the web page or the author's Flickr photostream.
Barnes Panel DStretch'd (ybk)
Finally, if you've got a really faint pictograph panel on a fairly uniform background, and you really want to know what's there (and don't mind the colors going the way of anodized titanium jewelry!) spend some time playing with DStretch (www.dstretch.com/). It doesn't always work for me, but in this case it really did.
For this I started with the jpeg off the camera (the first image I posted in this series), used ybk which was the best at picking out the pigment, and auto contrast. And that's all, no other processing, probably 5 minutes work max (just trying out the different options). We're pretty close to the level of detail on the cover of the Barnes book. (And some of the closeups I've taken a quick look at using the same method are well beyond that level of detail.) You should look at this at the original size if you want to get an idea of the amount of detail DStretch is recovering. The stuff along the right end of the panel is nearly invisible in the other shots, here's the clearest part of the panel.
For a few more DStretch examples, see the web page or the author's Flickr photostream.