Clean up greyscale images

Question

I scanned a few comics, and have images like this

I would like to have the background white ... in fact, I would like to have the white transparent, but that's just "nice to have", not "must have".

The problem is that there is some use of greyscale, such as

at least, I think that his "beard" is ggreyscale rather than just black

Which gratis software can make this presentable? If it helps, I am thinking of printing T-shirts.

Preferably Windows, but any o/s is acceptable

Many (perhaps most) scanning programs will do this for you. Certainly the HP scanning software on my Mac does. The trick is to scan as black and white, not gray scale and set an appropriate threshold. Certainly GIMP will do it. — Eric S, Commented Nov 23, 2019 at 14:41
Be advised that there are probably copyright issues if you want to see T-shirts. — Eric S, Commented Nov 23, 2019 at 14:44

fred_dot_u · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-23 10:57:33Z

3

Inkscape will do what you require. Inkscape is a free, multi-platform program which has a "trace bitmap" feature in the Path menu.

Some details were lost as I did not adjust any of the default parameters. The process took about ten to fifteen seconds to accomplish.

The result will be an SVG (vector) image, but you can export the image to PNG via the file menu.

answered Nov 23, 2019 at 10:57

fred_dot_u

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This is a good answer since the vector image will be scalable whereas a black and white bitmap won't be.
– Eric S
Commented Nov 23, 2019 at 14:43

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