Legibility of text on back of scanned photos

[paul.deitch]

Going through photos from the 18 hundreds and quite a few have illegible text on the brown card of the back. I have tried the usual things like B/W, increasing the contrast etc.
I saw a few comments on the internet about using UV and IR light as well to make ancient documents more legible.
Anyone know anything about this and how I might go about it? The photos aren't valuable enough to send off to a specialist.

[Simpo Two]

Have you tried Levels?

[paul.deitch]

Yes but do you have any specific recommendations?

[Simpo Two]

Yes, shove it in Photoshop and beast it with Levels. Or send me your e-mail address and we'll see what can be done. Obviously make the best scan you can.

[paul.deitch]

Thanks for the kind offer Simpo much appreciated but I want to have a crack it myself. I found that my quite old Sony Handycam has IR (inbuilt light and sensor) capability and I have close up lens for it. So that's going to be the first step. That Handycam has been brilliant for digitising VHS family video tapes as it has an analogue in.
Haven't quite concluded how to do the UV yet but I thought that I might get into a sun studio for an hour! However I don't know whether a digital camera will react much to UV.

[bigandclever]

You might be able to use your phone to create a UV light ...

https://www.osc.org/diy-blacklight-use-this-hack-t...