"Ken Durling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Can you handle another newbie? (I heard that groan) ;-)
Everyone was a newbie once! Welcome! > 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. I'm not familiar with Photoshop Elements. I'm currently using a combination of Picture Window Pro for 16 bit curves manipulation and reduction to 24 bit then PaintShop Pro for everything else. I particularly like the printing layout facilities in PSP. If you've already bought PSE it will probably do most of what you want. > 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. I have an Epson 1160 which prints to A3+. Someone else suggested the C80 which is an excellent idea if you can live with never printing bigger than A4. The advantage of the C80 is separate ink carts so you only replace the empty ones, and the inks are pigment based not dye based so they should last many years without fading. Try subscribing to the Epson inkjet list at www.leben.com but I suggest subscribing to the digest because the list has a massive amount of traffic. > substantial difference as to whether I save the original scan as a > .TIFF or a .BMP? LZW TIFF will give you lossless compression and therefore a smaller filesize. It's also more transportable between different platforms. TIFF is understood in PC, Mac and Unix platforms. BMP is not. > Vuescan seems to be able to handle different films much better. I always use Vuescan because it gives me more data from my LS30 than the Nikon software does. > 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? I have had to write a LOT of CDRs becaue I scan in Vuescan and save full resolution raw and crop TIFF files. Even compressed the raw files are about 40MB, so a 36 frame film doesn't fit on one CDR. I keep the TIFFs as originals and produce working files from there. I always stay in TIFF format as long as possible, and only convert to jpeg at the final stage after resizing. Here's what I generally do at the moment; 1. Scan the frame in Vuescan (usually at least a whole strip if not the whole film) I scan in 16 bits per channel and with infrared cleaning on (not an option with your Canon) saving as raw and crop in compressed TIFF format. 2. Open each frame in PWP and adjust the levels in HSL colour space 3. Convert to 24bit in PWP and save as TIFF 4. Open in PSP and save as LZW TIFF (PWP doesn't save as LZW TIFFs) 5. Resize to two different sizes for web use, sharpening before saving as jpeg 6. Write to CDR with a directory containing the jpegs for reference If I'm sending files to my brother for printing in a magazine I convert the files to CMYK with PSP and write them to another CDR. > 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. >From everything I've seen on the Epson list, colour management can be more pain than it's worth. Wait until you get your printer, and try some prints using the default settings and you may be quite happy with the results. I have found that the later models of Epson printers have excellent profiles, and trying to make your own profiles for everything usually ends up costing more pain than gain. Getting your monitor adjusted right helps a LOT, however. Otherwise you'll wonder why your prints never match the brightness on the screen. > To start with I'd appreciate a good explanation of "gamma." Try www.scantips.com for lots of scanner basics. Rob