How do you change the background of a page of a book?

[photo1991]

Hello!
I need advice and I hope you can help me .....
I scanned a page of a book that I have to re-print on a sheet of yellow, giving it the background color. The original page has a white background and thought I'd make it transparent (PNG) with the Magic Eraser. The Magic Eraser, however, ends up affecting even the text on the page making it unreadable and not the internal parts of the letters O, P, A, etc. are not reached by road and remain white. In short, the effect of the rubber is bad ...
How can I do? Is there a way in photoshop to remove the white background of the page making it transparent, without ruining the text?
Thanks!​

 

[Steve]

Why not use OCR Software and turn the image into a text document?

 

[siodre]

hard to say without seeing a photo but if you want to keep it as an image document try using blend if. right click on the layer with the white (if everything is in one background layer either unlock it or duplicate it and hide the bottom layer). choose blending options from the menu that pops down. at the bottom of the dialogue you'll see two lines with a black to white gradient on them. use the top one that's labeled "blend if this layer" or something like that. move the white triangle left until you see something close to what you want. if you want a smoother transition or edges press alt on the keyboard and drag the triangle left again, it will split into two pieces and let you control both pieces separately giving you more control of the smoothness of the transition.