Help with japanese/photoshop.

[jeffdamann]

Hi guys. I have a family friend that is techno-illiterate. I am trying to sell a couple of ivory figurines for her and am in the process of trying to upload the details to ebay, but I've run into a problem.

My wife went over and took the pictures....lets just say she cant focus a camera.

I have tried all night to sharpen these images to some sort of quality, where you can tell the amount of work that went into these figurines, but nothing I can do helps...

I finally decided to just draw over the symbols etched in the bottom to bring them out more, but I just dont think I got them right... take a look.

#1 Before:


#1 After:
 

#2 Before:
 

#2 After:
 

Any of you Japanese savvy people may be able to recognize these, or they may be Chinese or something... Im not sure.

Also if any of the more skilled photoshop artists would like to take these few files and clean them up for me, I would GREATLY appreciate it as youd be doing not only me, but our family friend, a big favor.(These things are supposed to be worth 1-2k at least)

Here's a link for the photos. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J1EDT8WA

Once again any help at all is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

[RPGillespie]

The easiest solution would be to teach your wife about the macro setting on the camera and send her back over to take some better pictures. Put the figurines on a uniform surface that is well-lit, turn on the macro setting, and use a mini-tripod if you don't have steady hands.  All the photoshop in the world won't looks as good as a picture that was taken right the first time.

[jeffdamann]

LMAO i feel like a retard. Ive never had much use for photography so I really dont use digital cameras. After about ten seconds of reading your post I found the macro mode setting sitting right on top of the camera in plain view. Even makes plenty of sense, its a slider, one side being mountains(for landscapes etc obviously) and one being a flower(for macro mode).

[Landarma]

Doesn't look like Japanese, but Kanji(Hanzi or Chinese character).  The photo is too blurry to find out, but.......

**Edit: Looks like '隆乾' is written there.  It seems like..... some kind of personal name or something else.