It's "Help A Doofus Day" (With Image Files)

OK, I've got a lot of covers I want to share with you, but when I scan them they save as a Jpeg file and most are over 300K. I tried to convert one to .gif and it cut the size down to 188K but still too large.

How can I fix my problem?

Good question me boy...i try to scan 6 inch wide covers and always seem to lose a piece on one end or the other when I do the 6x4 size..if I try a larger size the cover does not look right sized !

OK Phil, so where are the child geniuses we've been paying our taxes to educate. It's time one of them does something to pay us back - something like help us!

Greg, I posted something about this for you at one time. I guess it didn't make sense. There should be something to help you resize your scans once you make them. Or just set the settings to scan at 100 dpi or ppi or whatever they might be calling it. Photoshop lets you save jpeg's at different qualities, I guess 1-8. Set this at 3 if you can. Gif's aren't good for this.

Modern - I guess it still doesn't make sense. I took the quality down to 15% in Photoshop and although its better, it still comes in at 128K. I use the scanner at work so I don't know if I can adjust from that end or not. I'll have to ask my IT whiz tomorrow! Thanks!

Lecture mode on (fair warning to those who tire of long-winded professorial explanations)



DPI and PPI

First a short tangent on dpi and ppi. No, they aren't really the same thing, but a lot of software (including scanning software) use the term dpi when ppi is really what is meant. Dpi stands for "dots per inch". Ppi stands for "pixels per inch".

Dpi really only makes sense in the context of printing. Most printing processes create images uses tiny dots of ink. So essentially, the more dots you can squeeze into an inch, the better the detail, color-blending, etc. the image can have. So whatever the resolution of an image, a 1200 dpi printer could potentially produce a higher quality print than a 300 dpi printer.

Ppi on the other hand describes how many pixels in an image shall be considered an inch. Most image formats store this information as part of the image file, and many image manipulation programs (like Photoshop) lets you change this information. This directly affects the size of the image when printed. Let's say you had a square image that was 300 pixels by 300 pixels. If you set the ppi to 300, then the printed image would be 1 inch by 1 inch. If you changed the ppi to 100, then the printed image would be 3 inches by 3 inches (and probably a bit blurrier, since the actual number of pixels hasn't changed -- they are just spread out across more space).

Image Size

So what was the point of all that?

More than anything else, what affects the size of an image is ... well ... the size. An image that is 1024x768 pixels is 2.56 times as big as an image that is 640x480 pixels (although the differences in actual image files might vary due to the compression algorithm used in the image format).

Unlike, printing, when creating images to be displayed on a computer monitor, what really matters is the actual pixel count. If your monitor has a resolution of 1024x768 pixels, then a 1024x768 pixel image will take up your entire screen (if shown at actual size), regardless of what it's ppi might be set to. So the best way to trim the size of an image file is to load it into a program like Photoshop or Paint Pro and re-size the image down to a more manageable size. If the program has a check-box or "link" icon to "maintain aspect ratio", I would turn that feature on; that way, when you change the number of pixels of one edge, the other edge will automatically re-size to match.

My Recommendations

For a typical commemorative size stamp, I usually set the longer edge to 700 pixels. For definitive size, I usually set the longer edge to 600 (sometimes a bit less if the design is "complex" since complex images do not compress as much as simple images). Jpeg definitely seems to be the way to go with most stamps, and a quality factor of 8 usually works for me -- I've never had to go below 6.

On Scanning

Now, as if this wasn't long enough, a note about scanning.

If you plan on manipulating your scanned image (say, for color-balancing or sharpening), then I recommend using the highest ppi setting your scanner can handle (or rather, the setting that matches its highest optical resolution since anything higher doesn't really buy you anything, but that really is another discussion). This will typically be 1200 on current scanners, but could be anything from 300 at the lower end to 4800 or more if you have a really nice (expensive) scanner. This setting will give you the most detail, but you will have to re-size your image before uploading it to the forum.

Alternatively, if you just want to "scan it and post it", then you might want to set your scanner's ppi lower. The thing to remember is that if you set the ppi to say 600, that means that a stamp 1 inch wide will show up as 600 pixels wide on your screen. This might be fine for a single stamp, but a cover that is 6 inches by 4 inches will end up being 3600 pixels wide and and 2400 pixels high! (In this case a setting of 100 ppi might be a better choice.)

Finally, most scanning programs let you draw a little rectangle around just the portion you want to scan (and often they have a preview button you can push that will zoom in on that selected area). Limiting your scan this way is a good idea. It takes less time to scan, and you avoid having a big blob of white space (or grey or black space if you leave the cover open) that later needs to be trimmed out of the image.

Image Formats

I was thinking about talking a little bit about image formats (JPEG vs. GIF), but I think maybe that would best be left to another post.



So, hopefully this wasn't too didactic and was at least a little bit helpful ...

Lecture mode off.

stamphop: I get where your comming from (Me Programmer). But for the layman!

Easy way is to load into (Paint) you know that old program in your start menu.

Load your image.

Once loaded choose Image of the main menu. Then Choose Streech/Skew, Then choose what you want to reduce it by %. Make sure you use the same % on both the x and y axis.

Then all you have to do is save as (Jpeg) and your good.

Jeff

Jeff,

Yep. You're completely right. I'm a techno-geek and a half, so I have a tendency to get wrapped up in the details. "I think it's interesting, so doesn't everbody?"

But I did give fair warning. Umm ... perhaps my warning wasn't strong enough come to think of it ...

Everybody else,

So ... umm ... yeah, what Jeff said.

Or ... you could do some fancy arithmetic - it's really not that hard - all you have to do is first measure your stamp with a set of calipers - then measure the ...

I'm clueles... And even I'm a child.. =D I guess you guys didn't pay enough taxes.. To Australia.. =D

Yeah I would just use paint and shrink it down like he said until it is around 100 kb.

Jser

EURIKA! Even old coots can get something figured out eventually!

I was able to reduce the size of my cover files by using IrfanView - which can be downloaded from this site, by the way.

After you're in the program, select the picture you want to work with from My Pictures or wherever you have it.

Then go to "Image" and "Resize/Resample."

Choose the size you want to convert to. I used 640 x 480 Pixels.

Click "OK."

Save the new file.

That's it!

Thanks everyone who tried to boost my intelligence level - even though it didn't really work.