Picture size

On this particular day of this month, in the Year Of The Golden Pig, P & H Macguire did state:

I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G.
They will be scanned at about 300dpi.

Regards

PJM

Absolutely scan at 300dpi or even more. You can always reduce (dpi, size,
etc.) but no matter what, no matter how a pic is, enlarging more than 25%
is useless and there is much quality degradation.

Avoid 72 dpi like unto the plague. That was a semi-arbitrary resolution
based on the early browsers that could not display more than that, and the
palettes were also fewer than 256 colours. Those were the old days.
And today's monitors, both LCD and CRT, can display even more than 300
dpi, and do it well.

Optimally, save at the highest settings all around for archival purposes;
with high quality CD+R disks selling for under a dollar apiece (Canadian,
eh? Prolly about U$D $0.70 or less), it shouldn't be a problem.

In addition to keeping the originals, the current post-production
(cropping, colour tweaking, sharpening, etc.) 'storage' size is 1600x1200.

Probably the best way to keep filesizes down is to (when finished tweaking
and all that) save at 85% of the original 'quality'. The difference
in filesize is striking, and truly, I have yet to find /anyone/ that can
tell the difference between 100% and 85% because of the way JPEG
compression handles the data.

As for filesizes, both physical and byte-wise, for this group, that would
depend on your FAQ or whatever has been decided either formally or by
general agreement, like the yEnc issue. (and yes, I know the debate
thoroughly; yEnc be GOOD, but Bill Gates has his own rules, which are by
default /your/ rules, like it or not)

Next door in ABPAutos, 1280 has now become the norm, and 1024 is
considered a bit small. It all depends, methinks, on how much detail you
wish to see, and for now, 1280 @ ~85% reduction is working extremely well.

However, beware of the various file manipulator progs. Your image editor,
e.g., PSP, Photoshop and The GIMP (Linux, /free/ and excellent, and I
believe there are versions for PC and Mac) are your best bets.

One notable exception to this is IrfanView, a freebie, and
although it is a small program, it has become legendary amongst users for
it's output quality, and legendary amongst programmers, who continually
praise its elegance of programming. Grab a copy and play with it a bit and
you'll likely be quite surprised at how much it can do and how well it
does it all. But, it should NOT be a replacement for a good image
manipulation graphics prog, but a very good adjunct program.

Drop by ABPAutos and have a look; you don't need to know anything about
cars to evaluate the pix; after all, I know virtually zilch about
aircraft, but I lurk here, and love it. I just think planes are cool, I
love learning about them, and I pass interesting pix along to two pilot
friends. (The Leduc-22 was the most recent; one of the pilots is also an
aviation journalist, and it took him on a very Sentimental Journey!)

FWIW, but I hope it helps in some small way.

However, the Gilded Rule is go BIG; you can always go downwards (or
'downsize' these days!) to suit your needs!


SW


--
There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like
about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to
other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.

-Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878)

"P & H Macguire" wrote in message
...
I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G.
They will be scanned at about 300dpi.

Regards

PJM


Thanks to everybody who took the time. A lot of food for thought
there.

Regards

PJM

§qu@re Wheels wrote:

On this particular day of this month, in the Year Of The Golden Pig, P & H Macguire did state:


I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G.
They will be scanned at about 300dpi.

Regards

PJM


Absolutely scan at 300dpi or even more. You can always reduce (dpi, size,
etc.) but no matter what, no matter how a pic is, enlarging more than 25%
is useless and there is much quality degradation.

Avoid 72 dpi like unto the plague. That was a semi-arbitrary resolution
based on the early browsers that could not display more than that, and the
palettes were also fewer than 256 colours. Those were the old days.
And today's monitors, both LCD and CRT, can display even more than 300
dpi, and do it well.


Please list monitors (any) that display higher resolution than 72 dpi.



Optimally, save at the highest settings all around for archival purposes;
with high quality CD+R disks selling for under a dollar apiece (Canadian,
eh? Prolly about U$D $0.70 or less), it shouldn't be a problem.

In addition to keeping the originals, the current post-production
(cropping, colour tweaking, sharpening, etc.) 'storage' size is 1600x1200.

Probably the best way to keep filesizes down is to (when finished tweaking
and all that) save at 85% of the original 'quality'. The difference
in filesize is striking, and truly, I have yet to find /anyone/ that can
tell the difference between 100% and 85% because of the way JPEG
compression handles the data.

As for filesizes, both physical and byte-wise, for this group, that would
depend on your FAQ or whatever has been decided either formally or by
general agreement, like the yEnc issue. (and yes, I know the debate
thoroughly; yEnc be GOOD, but Bill Gates has his own rules, which are by
default /your/ rules, like it or not)

Next door in ABPAutos, 1280 has now become the norm, and 1024 is
considered a bit small. It all depends, methinks, on how much detail you
wish to see, and for now, 1280 @ ~85% reduction is working extremely well.

However, beware of the various file manipulator progs. Your image editor,
e.g., PSP, Photoshop and The GIMP (Linux, /free/ and excellent, and I
believe there are versions for PC and Mac) are your best bets.

One notable exception to this is IrfanView, a freebie, and
although it is a small program, it has become legendary amongst users for
it's output quality, and legendary amongst programmers, who continually
praise its elegance of programming. Grab a copy and play with it a bit and
you'll likely be quite surprised at how much it can do and how well it
does it all. But, it should NOT be a replacement for a good image
manipulation graphics prog, but a very good adjunct program.

Drop by ABPAutos and have a look; you don't need to know anything about
cars to evaluate the pix; after all, I know virtually zilch about
aircraft, but I lurk here, and love it. I just think planes are cool, I
love learning about them, and I pass interesting pix along to two pilot
friends. (The Leduc-22 was the most recent; one of the pilots is also an
aviation journalist, and it took him on a very Sentimental Journey!)

FWIW, but I hope it helps in some small way.

However, the Gilded Rule is go BIG; you can always go downwards (or
'downsize' these days!) to suit your needs!


SW

On this particular day of this month, in the Year Of The Golden Pig,
Grumpy AuContraire did state:

Please list monitors (any) that display higher resolution than 72 dpi.

Almost all today can default to 96 dpi, and if it's more than 19" can be
tweaked into the 110+ range.

DPI is extremely confusing, because there are so many variables. My
Samsung 214t is set to display at 131 dpi because in part it is set to
1600x1200 native res. When you get into the 5000xWhatever range (which I
can't; I'm maxed), then you're getting up to around the 300 dpi mark -- or
so the manufacturers say.

One major problem is that the Windoze environment has its own limits,
which are less than simply what the monitor is capable of (and that's
about all I remember about Windoze). As for the Mac environment, I know
zilch, though I've heard it's about the same as Windoze, except for
perhaps their newest pricey offering.

But in truth, right now dpi is far more important for printing and
archiving purposes, but for monitors it is increasing in importance as
well. The new widescreen monitors (as well as the monster 40" and up
plasma HDTVs) will display at a higher dpi because their native desktop
size is larger. And of course, the 5:4 vs 4:3 ratio issue is adding to the
confusion as well.

However, an expert can offer far better info than I; unfortunately my
personal 'Puter Wizard and wife are both on the road lecturing in
different places and unavailable.

So, 96 dpi is fairly universal, and that increases with acreage and price.
Since the Web is still basically a 72 dpi medium, most manufacturers have
not made increasing display res much of a priority. The vast majority of
people are happy just the way things are.

I tend to think in "High End" terms because so many of the people I know
are computer professionals, graphics professionals and media types. So I
really should have added that although many monitors can easily display
300 dpi, you pay /heavily/ for it, and many of these monitors are not even
available (yet) at the retail level.

And that's about all I can say; the whole issue is very
mathematically-oriented, and I just don't speak math very well at all.



SW


--
From: (via teranews)

Reported to: , ,


And they are very tired of you.

Message-ID:

Yes, there's a bitch that replies to me, kinda telling me the
problem's with the Canadian Shaw's personnel. But prescience pays off and
long as you violate the groups charter, or just Usenet's common decency,
I'll be there to report you. You being a traitor is a especial incentive.

"Jim Townsend" wrote in message
...
octothorpe wrote:


May I add that the size that you suggested should be at ~72 dpi
resolution to keep the file size smaller for the web. Monitors cannot
display the 300 dpi res any better than the 72 dpi res. The 300 is good
for
printing.

FWIW, The DPI setting has *nothing* whatsoever to do with the file size of
an image. It's a confusing subect The link below has a pretty good
explanation.

http://www.larry-bolch.com/dpi-revealed/



Thanks for the link, Jim. I'll have to open up Irfanview and PSP to
experiment.

Tom

"The Old Bloke" wrote in message
...

"octothorpe" wrote in message
news:mJg1i.5118$3B5.4926@trnddc08...

"Luke" wrote in message
...

"P & H Macguire" wrote in message
...
I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G. They
will be scanned at about 300dpi.


640X480 is a dandy size for initial viewing. If folks want larger
prints for wallpaper or suck they will ask. They are never shy.


Luke



May I add that the size that you suggested should be at ~72 dpi
resolution to keep the file size smaller for the web. Monitors cannot
display the 300 dpi res any better than the 72 dpi res. The 300 is good
for printing.

Tom
For qualty retention 4800X4800 is needed.

But don't post at that resolution.

Doug

"octothorpe" wrote in message
news:mJg1i.5118$3B5.4926@trnddc08...

"Luke" wrote in message
...

"P & H Macguire" wrote in message
...
I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G. They
will be scanned at about 300dpi.


640X480 is a dandy size for initial viewing. If folks want larger
prints for wallpaper or suck they will ask. They are never shy.


Luke



May I add that the size that you suggested should be at ~72 dpi
resolution to keep the file size smaller for the web. Monitors cannot
display the 300 dpi res any better than the 72 dpi res. The 300 is good
for printing.

Tom
Yes for posting that is OK, but not for scanning. A slide is about 1 inch
by 1 inch, so at 72 dpi you would have only 72 dots across the image. So
scan at 2400 or 4800, and then sub sample for posting.

Dedicated slide scanners for home use usually use 2400/4800/9600 dpi.

"Grumpy AuContraire" wrote in message
news


§qu@re Wheels wrote:

On this particular day of this month, in the Year Of The Golden Pig, P &
H Macguire did state:


I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G. They
will be scanned at about 300dpi.

Regards

PJM


Absolutely scan at 300dpi or even more. You can always reduce (dpi, size,
etc.) but no matter what, no matter how a pic is, enlarging more than 25%
is useless and there is much quality degradation.

Avoid 72 dpi like unto the plague. That was a semi-arbitrary resolution
based on the early browsers that could not display more than that, and
the
palettes were also fewer than 256 colours. Those were the old days.
And today's monitors, both LCD and CRT, can display even more than 300
dpi, and do it well.


Please list monitors (any) that display higher resolution than 72 dpi.

My monitor is an Apple Mac 23" (running on a PC) and it has 1920 X 1200.
The vertical dimension is 12" So about 100dpi.

My Sony VAIO notebook has 1920 X 1200 and the screen is 9" high. That's 133
dpi.

There are two issues. Scanning for archive and then the (reduced) size for
posting.

When I scan a slide I do it for archiving and I use 4800. Even that doesn't
do the slide its full credit. For archival, you also need to consider the
colour depth. 48 bit is great for a slide, but normal jpg will only save 32
bit. There is a higher depth jpeg (jpeg2000, I think) but I don't use it.
It's a rare format and I don't trust trust it to supported in 20 years time.

If you do scan a slide at 72 dpi, then you will have an image that is
roughly 72 X 72. Almost unusable.

Regards


snip

"Dave Kearton" wrote in message
...
The Old Bloke wrote:
"octothorpe" wrote in message
news:mJg1i.5118$3B5.4926@trnddc08...

"Luke" wrote in message
...

"P & H Macguire" wrote in message
...
I am in the process of scanning some old slides of 60s to 90s and
wondered what the optimum size should be for posting on this N/G.
They will be scanned at about 300dpi.


640X480 is a dandy size for initial viewing. If folks want
larger prints for wallpaper or suck they will ask. They are never
shy.


Luke



May I add that the size that you suggested should be at ~72 dpi
resolution to keep the file size smaller for the web. Monitors
cannot display the 300 dpi res any better than the 72 dpi res. The
300 is good for printing.

Tom
For qualty retention 4800X4800 is needed.



Don't listen to him, he's from the dark side (by the way Luke, he's
your
father)


Oi Davo, carefull!!!! :-))

On this particular day of this month, in the Year Of The Golden Pig, The
Old Bloke did state:

There is a higher depth jpeg (jpeg2000, I think) but I don't use it.
It's a rare format and I don't trust trust it to supported in 20 years time.

It's not even supported now, AFAIK. Haven't seen one in over a year, and
even then the poster got blasted for using it.

I think PNG will be around for a while; it at least is being used, but
mostly as a hi-res high-colour GIF would be because it has transparency
capabilities.

Filesizes are out of line, though. If they can get that under control, it
might hang around a while.

Meanwhile, the JPEG crowd (Joint Photographic Expert Group) are trying (or
were) to grab royalties as a propriety format. If they ever succeeded,
which is about as likely as me inheriting the British Crown Jewels, it
would be a revenue-neutral business.


SW


--
From: (via teranews)

Reported to: , ,


And they are very tired of you.

Message-ID:

Yes, there's a bitch that replies to me, kinda telling me the
problem's with the Canadian Shaw's personnel. But prescience pays off and
long as you violate the groups charter, or just Usenet's common decency,
I'll be there to report you. You being a traitor is a especial incentive.