How the recovery keeps the background
The worker reads the file with offline OCR and a dual-polarity stroke hunt. Dark ink on cream paper, white ink on navy, and colored ink on a street photo all count. It builds a mask of the letter strokes, steepens those strokes, and copies every pixel outside the mask back from the original. That is why a brick wall, a gradient, or a foil field can stay honest while the headline cleans up.
When to send the file to the team instead
Use Instant recover for a single flattened image. If the file is a multi-page scan, a missing word, or a logo that also needs vector cleanup, choose We will do it for you. The File Uploader already opens with notes for this bench. There is no extra charge for that prepress pass.
Frequently asked questions
Will this change the photo or texture behind the letters?
No. The recovery writes only inside a feathered letter mask. Pixels outside that mask are copied back from your original file, so a photo, foil, brick wall, or solid color stays the same. If a pass cannot prove that, the worker hands the original back instead of shipping a chewed background.
Can it recover white or gold text on a dark picture?
Yes. That is the reason this bench exists next to the Artwork Quality Enhancer. The enhancer’s older text path looked for dark print ink. This tool hunts both dark-on-light and light-on-dark strokes, then rebuilds those strokes in place so reversed type and foil-style lettering can get sharp without a white box wipe.
Does the tool retype my words in a new font?
No. Recognized words are only a map so we know where the letters sit. The download keeps your original letter shapes, colors, and layout. We do not substitute Arial or any other house font unless you later ask a person to rebuild a missing word on purpose. Guessed type is how phone numbers get printed wrong.
What if the letters are too gone to recover?
If the stroke is no longer in the pixels, no honest tool can invent it. We will say so and keep the original. The safe next step is the native design file, or a 55printing prepress rebuild through the File Uploader. That human path is still free of charge when you ask from this page.