Greetings - Can you handle another newbie? (I heard that groan) ;-)
OK, not entirely new to scanning, but just got my first film scanner - a Canon FS2710 that I got 2nd hand. Seems to be working fine. it's making me realize that I need to get into a whole other level of control and understanding of what I'm doing. Prior to this all my work - about 4 years of it - has been on a HP 5200C flatbed, with the bundled PhotoDeluxe and occasionally Corel Photo House. I've gotten pretty good at the basics. I've tried out Photoshop Elements and like it, but at this point am wavering as to whether I should get the whole PS6 package or if PSE would do it. IAny advice appreciated. I know you need to know more about what I want to be able to do. At this point I mainly am striving to just get the absolute best quality photo and then reproduction thereof that I can, given my budget, which is why I'm limited to 2720 dpi. Probably it will be fine for my purposes, which is mostly web-based right now, but eventually I'd like to make my own prints, up to 8x10, with a very occasional larger one. Don't have a photo printer right now, just an HP Color Inkjet, but will probably eventually get an Epson 1280 or a smaller one. Right now I think most of my questions concern procedure with these large scans, which are new to me. I'd appreciate any tips no how to minimize loss when compressing to a jpeg. For example, Is there any substantial difference as to whether I save the original scan as a .TIFF or a .BMP? These seem to be the main options offered by the Canon software. I do have a trial copy of Vuescan, which I'm *very* impressed by so far, and will be going over to a full version of that probably, unless I'm convinced otherwise here! Vuescan seems to be able to handle different films much better. Another question when working with large files like this is at what point do you do most of your image adjustment? Do you do all your color balancing, sizing, and similar image property work on the .TIFF and then compress and run sharpen on the jpeg? So I have a lot to learn about color control, and have basically zero experience with color management. But I'm not doing a lot of printing just yet, so that's probably not my first concern. To start with I'd appreciate a good explanation of "gamma." Anyway, enough for now! Needless to say, some or all of the above may be able to be answered by links and FAQ's, please feel free to refer me to the requisite sources, I'm a good reader! If you want to critique what I've been doing thus far, I have a portfolio at photo.net: http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=402251 And a primitive template-based website. URL is in my sig. Thanks very much. I promise to try not to ask the 14,000 most asked newbie questions. Ken Durling Website http://home.earthlink.net/~kdurling/ Alternate e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]