How to improve this image quality?

Dear community members, are there any way I can improve the quality of the following image for presentation purposes?

As example, I attache the original image and one I found on the literature.

I appreciate any help,

thanks

ORIGINAL:

GOOD PICTURE:

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

invert the image so dark is foreground. Binarize choosing a threshold that includes the small spheres in the foreground. Grow the foreground enough to erase what currently shows as a brighter edge, so the current dark edge and the spheres are joined in one region. bwareafilt asking for the largest region. bwmorph to fill the hole. Now use the result as a mask against the original image: you will have selected the dark edge and the attached spheres if all goes well.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Well you can expand the contrast with imadjust. But otherwise I'd just leave it as it is. You can retouch the image in Photoshop to get rid of defects but why? Why not just show your readers what you're actually dealing with rather than give them some "improved" image that you're not working with?

[Image Analyst]

Perhaps clean the lens or other things in the optical path. Adjust the focus to see if that helps.