Wallpapers and Walling

Well, the resolution of original is not very good, so in any case with the original scan it's hard to get any good quality. I'm can suggest to look for better resolution of original, or use another crop. Mb vectoring and repainting can help. Text: why not try vertical orientation? There are dark trees, use one of them as a BG for text.

I agree with ArRana - a repaint could look really good, especially on the background! It would give the whole thing a nice artistic, painterly effect, and it'd help clean up the noise/blur troubles.

As for the text, I think something less fancy (like Futura or Palatino Linotype) in straight lines and a smaller size would complement the wall better. The focus should be the image, not the words. Again, I like ArRana's idea of putting the text vertically on a tree. But it could also look nice on the ground to the left just at the base of the house.

Or you can try what I'm doing with my current wall, which is to completely repaint the background using mostly just the paintbrush tools and smudge.

Reference

This requires a lot of time and effort though. Don't expect this wall to hit the galleries within the next few weeks, or even this month.

The words look kind of out of place right now. Tho' i'm not sure how you can fix that.

I checked out the original scan, and I realize why a lot of the original beauty got lost in the crop. Firstly, the sense of space disappeared when you cut out the tops of the trees and the sky. Also, the open sky balanced the concentration of textures at the bottom. It evoked that beautiful sense of melancholy.

I could suggest a different crop, but I feel it's a disservice to the art, since you're trying to force it into this horizontal space. I suggest you try another scan that lends itself more efficiently to a horizontal orientation, with a higher resolution, too.

If you're really in love with this particular scene, you might want to extract the individual elements (characters, house, trees) and rearrange them. This will likely involve lot of work. You could try vector-tracing the line art (it's a lot easier than digitally painting the whole thing). From there you could try out a simpler, flatter style of painting and enhance it by overlaying textures, etc.

As for the typography, again, I go back to the scan. Note how simple it is: one line, plain white, small enough that it doesn't try to take away the focus from the image. You can try something like that, using a simple font. My first concern is readability - I mean, if you put it there, it might as well be intelligible, right? Try a plain serif like Georgia or Times, maybe varying the weight or size. You don't have to put them all on one line, either. Still, I always say this: don't add any text if it doesn't do anything for the image, visually, or meaningfully.

Good luck with your wall, and I hope that wasn't too long! I tend to get carried away with my critique. :P

repaint? you mean vector it? lol

I don't know bout you but reapinting BG is the same as vectoring (vexeling) for me, so if vectoring tutorial you want I think nysha's tutorial is pretty good

in her "about me"