Yoc --
And many thanks for the insights. My basic approach is to treat a comics page (deteriorated or not) with the same respect I bring to a gallery painting, whether original or a restoration. Art is art is art is art, just as there is only one Show Business, whether sideshow or honky-tonk or highfalutin' opera house. Your discovery of the PhotoShop filtering tools will prove immeasurably helpful, I believe. I keep several versions of PhotoShop in communion with one another, including some primitive (now antiquated) prototypes from 'way back when the studio was doing Carnival of Souls and Holiday for Screams for Malibu Graphics. Each has its advantages, and when harnessed together they can deliver results finer than any single program by itself.
When restoring lettering as a separate layer or separate file (the better to place a restored balloon within the final page), I try to work with the authentic material. Sometimes, this is impossible, owing to many factors that might include, for example, a layer of original coloring over a caption. This requires a higher density (400-600 d.p.i.) and a willingness to crank the Gamma (one stage), then lighten it with Contrast and the Lightening tool (one stage), then blur it (one stage) to remove traces of pulpwood distortion, and then sharpen it (one stage) and then adjust Gamma, Contrast, and Lightening (another stage) until pleasing to the eye (an instinctive judgment). A good desaturation, or bleaching, is the final step before an original balloon's lettering is ready to plunk into the correct place upon the final page. Misspellings, bad kerning and line spacing, and even poor grammar and bad syntax can be corrected (in the original letterer's own handwriting) by the Cloning tool or even a simple cut-and-paste procedure. I developed this technique several years ago when restoring my Prowler series (with Tim Truman, John Snyder, and Graham Nolan) for an omnibus edition; Tim Harkins' lettering was integral to the authenticity, but it required scattered corrections.
When applying original lettering, I use a customized keystroke edition of my own hand-lettering alphabet (I learned the craft from Ben Oda), in addition to several prefabricated fonts, modified in Real Time. Fanboy Hardcore is evocative but usually requires narrowing; its lower-case setting can yield the all-important lower-case "i" in places where an upper-case serifed "I" is inappropriate. A Leroy-style font (called Squa Tront, and best used in lower case) is available as a free download. The lowly and over-used MS Comic Sans can become a vibrant and evocative comics-page font if double-bolded and adjusted for kerning and narrowed line-spacing. (A single-stroke "i" can be found in MS Comic by using the lower-case "L.") Nothing beats hand-lettering on Strathmore, of course, but a digital-lettering job can be made to appear organic with patience and the right attitude.
A most delightful exchange of ideas, here. Thanks. And yes, the Digital Comics Museum will receive its due in the forthcoming volume. Your service to the field of research is irreplaceable.
-- MHP