Digital Album - Presenting Stamps On Digital Album Pages

Here's a basic question. I'm wondering about actual sizes of stamp images (height/width) or at least relative sizes of stamp images in the digital album.

90% or more of the scans I've made in the last five years have been scanned with the scanner set to 200% and 200dpi. Older than that, all bets are off...most were probably done at 100%.

Maybe I'm overthinking this...what is a good protocol to follow to make sure you are easily retaining the size, or at least relative size, of your images on a digital page? If I had separate scans of these two stamps, I wouldn't want them to end up being the same size on my page:

DCStamps - - good to avoid anyone getting confused!

Cjd - That is a very relevant question! I have not experienced any changes to the true size of the images for the scans I have made myself. The HP software coming with the scanner has been set to 200dpi without any "%" as your suggesting. When printed from excel file, powerpoint or pdf, the result has been in natural sizes.
However, I have used a few scans directly from ebay-descriptions purchased items. Many of those have appeared in wrong relative sixe.

Unfortunately I do not have any recommendation for what you should do, maybe remove this '200%' setting you are using?
Luckily there are lots of data-competence on the forum - I trust someone will offer you more help!

Hi cjd

Actually I had to work through this, as it wasn't so simple. In the end, you might have to do a little trial and error to find out what works right with the software you are using.

I scan my stamp images at 300ppi (sometimes at 600ppi if I need an ultra close up) at 100%. I always save the image as a .jpg file. (Blaamand, please note that I would not recommend using a scan off of the internet as they are often not the correct color or resolution)

As an amateur photographer, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. It is great for handling all kinds of photographs and scans. I load up my scanned stamp images and Elements allows me to straighten up the image (so it sits square in the album page), crop the image to only show the stamp, resize the image (in case I want to highlight a particular detail), and sharpen the image up a little for better presentation.

Elements also allows me to "copy" and "paste" directly onto the PowerPoint page on a 1:1 basis.

As mentioned before, to make sure that your paste is a 1:1 size ratio, you might need to play around a bit. As for me in PowerPoint, when I copy the image from the Elements file, I use "Paste Special" and paste it as a "Device Independent Bitmap" I have found that this setting keeps the highest resolution of the stamp as well as the proper sizing.

Although this may not be the answer your software, but at least it tells you what I do.

Again, if you or anyone wants a very detailed set of instructions of how I make my albums, please drop me an email and I will send you a link where you can find it.

Michael

Also, I want to clarify something, as it is easy to mix up dpi and ppi and use them interchangeably.

I used to get this confused as well.

PPI (pixels per square inch) is the resolution that an image (such as a photograph) is being scanned into a digital format (such as jpeg, bmp, etc). The higher ppi of course is better for the image, but the downside is that the file becomes exponentially bigger as more information is storied.

DPI (dots per square inch) is the resolution that a printer prints out on a medium (in this case paper). No matter how high the resolution (ppi) of the image file, the printer output resolution will only be as good as the dpi of the printer.

If you have a printer/scanner combo, then it is often hard to find the true ppi resolution of the scanners input. The reason is that most folks care about the output of the printed image, rather than the digital file itself. If the scanner is good enough to provide you a high print resolution, it is sufficient for the product.

Bottom line, if you are using scanned images of your stamps, ppi is what is important, and dpi is irrelevant.

This is just a thought about getting a transparent background -- essentially, making the "paper" transparent.

I won't have time to test this out right now, but I think a possibility exists, using an image program. I'm relying on my memory at the moment on how Photoshop would treat this, and I believe it would be the same with Photoshop Elements, but am not certain. It may also be possible in Irfanview or GIMP, and would be worthwhile for someone to check that out.

In Photoshop, I believe you could use the "magic wand" tool to select the black text, frames and borders on the page. You might have to play around a little bit with the settings of magic wand tool in order to adjust its sensitivity to make sure it gets all the black and none of the white. (Since that's a high contrast, this may not be too much of a problem.) Then copy that selection and paste to a new transparent layer. You would think turn off the visibility of the original layer (which had both "paper" and text). If it works, you should then have a visible layer only with the black text, frames and borders, with a transparent background, even in the interior of the stamp frames.

Just a thought. Based on some other things I do in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, I think it has a good chance of working.

DCStamps - your comment is yet another proof for the superiority of this forum - there are always someone in here with thorough and relevant knowledge - thanks for sharing!

I will remember the independant-bitmap-trick if running into problems. And yes, the scans from ebay are simply temporary solutions, often because I cannot wait for the real stamp to arrive, so I use the picture from ebay in mean-time - so my digital collection is updated with the new stamp even before the seller has sent it...

I have read about software than can automatically crop, straighten and split a large scan consisting of several stamps into many independent stamp scans. EZImage is an example of such software. Does anyone have any experience if this is really working - and if the results gets precise enough? That would be a significant timesaver! And it would certainly make using digital collections more attractive, as it would free more time for arranging the album rather than editing the images.
Anyone?

Philatarium - thanks - such a 'magic wand' would do wonders!! What you are describing is exactly what would make the difference. However cannot find any way to do this in my photsoftware

Blaamand:

I just googled "Irfanview" (which is free, by the way) and "magic wand", and found a couple of interesting results.

One suggestion, which, if it works, is even simpler than what I suggested.




From this thread:

https://irfanview-forum.de/archive/.../t-8838.html

There is also this page, which might give you some ideas as well:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-easy...ed-software/

But if the first suggestion works, that would certainly be the simplest.

I hope one of these works!

-- Dave

Woot

Dave to the rescue.



As you recall, you were the one who turned me on to the straighten tool in Elements. Changed my life (well, not really, but it did save me a lot of time trying to straighten my images manually).

Michael, that's great if any of those suggestions work for you or Blaamand! (Or anyone else, for that matter!)

I have certainly learned a lot from you about developing digital albums. I still haven't done it yet, but I have some specific ideas that I'm batting around now. All thanks to you, so back 'atcha!

Philatarium - Thank you for your suggestion, I din't quite make it work... However you leaded me into the right tracks by the word 'transparent'. Found that Powerpoint can make background colors transparent directly in the picture tool (- color/ set transparent color). So, my Steiner sample has now been made transparent, just as hoped for! Thank you so much.

DCStamps -

That sounds interesting - the straightening part is simply frustrating. Can this 'Elements' software autocrop the stamp scans as well?

In my opinion, at least, Elements (usually abbreviated PSE, for Photoshop Elements (an Adobe product)), does not do an adequate job of autocropping stamps, because of a stamp's perforations. PSE cannot automatically recognize the true ends of the perforoations, and so it cuts them mostly off. Sadly, I found it was not satisfactory in order to prepare images for selling stamps.

Ok thanks Philatarium, your experience is appreciated - will give up that software then.

Anybody knows if any software is doing a good job at automatically straightening and cropping stamp scans, preferably several in one go? Anybody tested EZimage for that job?

EZimage crop the scan

http://www.pcvu.com/ezimage/Ezi_MOVY.html

Area66 - yeah, I've seen their commercial - it really looks interesting. I want to know if anyone has actually tested themselves in real life - and can confirm it is as good as they say it is?