RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white (two-tone images)? Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing from a desktop computer? The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or Illustrator. In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from program to program, however. Best of luck with your project. Cheers, Rob Oakes
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks for that encouraging reply, Rob. Can I ask a quick supplementary? I have colour jpgs, not particularly high res but neither are they poor. And I'm making a pdf for submission to a printer, to be printed in b/w. The jpgs are atthe moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 11:20 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: Hi Richard, What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white (two-tone images)? Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing from a desktop computer? The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or Illustrator. In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from program to program, however. Best of luck with your project. Cheers, Rob Oakes
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, Can I ask a quick supplementary? Of course. The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final product different than you had envisioned. Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy about images and figures.) The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only converting from color to black and white. Loss of definition seems to happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the quality bar is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose additional data. Also, when you scale the images, make sure that they aren't down sampled (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a completely different mindset than when creating something for online distribution. Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's Save for Web and Devices feature or anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of Save for Web and Devices and co. is to down sample, not scale. One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source image. Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers, Rob
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks, Rob. That was very clear and helpful! Richard On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 13:12 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: Hi Richard, Can I ask a quick supplementary? Of course. The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final product different than you had envisioned. Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy about images and figures.) The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only converting from color to black and white. Loss of definition seems to happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the quality bar is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose additional data. Also, when you scale the images, make sure that they aren't down sampled (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a completely different mindset than when creating something for online distribution. Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's Save for Web and Devices feature or anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of Save for Web and Devices and co. is to down sample, not scale. One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source image. Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers, Rob
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white (two-tone images)? Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing from a desktop computer? The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or Illustrator. In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from program to program, however. Best of luck with your project. Cheers, Rob Oakes
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks for that encouraging reply, Rob. Can I ask a quick supplementary? I have colour jpgs, not particularly high res but neither are they poor. And I'm making a pdf for submission to a printer, to be printed in b/w. The jpgs are atthe moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 11:20 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: Hi Richard, What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white (two-tone images)? Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing from a desktop computer? The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or Illustrator. In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from program to program, however. Best of luck with your project. Cheers, Rob Oakes
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, Can I ask a quick supplementary? Of course. The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final product different than you had envisioned. Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy about images and figures.) The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only converting from color to black and white. Loss of definition seems to happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the quality bar is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose additional data. Also, when you scale the images, make sure that they aren't down sampled (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a completely different mindset than when creating something for online distribution. Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's Save for Web and Devices feature or anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of Save for Web and Devices and co. is to down sample, not scale. One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source image. Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers, Rob
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks, Rob. That was very clear and helpful! Richard On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 13:12 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: Hi Richard, Can I ask a quick supplementary? Of course. The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final product different than you had envisioned. Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy about images and figures.) The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only converting from color to black and white. Loss of definition seems to happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the quality bar is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose additional data. Also, when you scale the images, make sure that they aren't down sampled (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a completely different mindset than when creating something for online distribution. Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's Save for Web and Devices feature or anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of Save for Web and Devices and co. is to down sample, not scale. One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source image. Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers, Rob
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white (two-tone images)? Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing from a desktop computer? The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or Illustrator. In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from program to program, however. Best of luck with your project. Cheers, Rob Oakes
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks for that encouraging reply, Rob. Can I ask a quick supplementary? I have colour jpgs, not particularly high res but neither are they poor. And I'm making a pdf for submission to a printer, to be printed in b/w. The jpgs are atthe moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 11:20 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: > Hi Richard, > > What kinds of photos are they? For example, are they screenshots that > you've converted to black and white? Or are they text on a white > background? Or are they grayscale images or are they true black and white > (two-tone images)? > > Are there any pertinent details that you wish to highlight? What kind of > contrast values are you hoping to get? What is the initial resolution? Do > you have high-res copies for printing on a press or will you be printing > from a desktop computer? > > The answer to your original question really depends on what you want to do > with them. My experience with LyX has been that it does a pretty good job > with whatever images you feed to it, but it isn't a photo manipulation > program. All of the manipulation should happen to the input images before > you compile into a DVI or PDF. After that, you will need to make the > changes to the PDF in a program like Inkscape, Acrobat Professional, or > Illustrator. > > In general, however, I would recommend that you use TIFF images for black + > white and grayscale (either uncompressed or lossless compression). > Greyscale images are much smaller than color images with only a single > channel of information. In contrast, color images often have three or four > channels of information. Since they contain much less data, using lossy > compression (such as JPEG) doesn't result in a much smaller image size. > > Additionally, JPEG and other compressed image formats will often introduce > distortions. While this won't be visible if printing on a desktop printer > or viewing on screen, it is a terribly bad idea to use low resolution or > compressed images in a file bound for a printing press. > > For graphs and other data graphics, I would highly recommend creating either > an EPS or PDF image. When doing so, make sure that the graphic is a vector > based image rather than a rasterized version. This will result in a much > crisper looking print reproduction. The process for doing so varies from > program to program, however. > > Best of luck with your project. > > Cheers, > > Rob Oakes >
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Hi Richard, << Can I ask a quick supplementary? >> Of course. << The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or would the conversion cost me definition? >> By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final product different than you had envisioned. Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy about images and figures.) The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only converting from color to black and white. Loss of "definition" seems to happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the "quality" bar is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose additional data. Also, when you "scale the images", make sure that they aren't down sampled (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a completely different mindset than when creating something for online distribution. Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's "Save for Web and Devices" feature or anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of "Save for Web and Devices" and co. is to down sample, not scale. One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source image. Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Cheers, Rob
RE: photographs: what format to use for b/w printing via lyx?
Thanks, Rob. That was very clear and helpful! Richard On Mon, 2010-01-25 at 13:12 -0700, Rob Oakes wrote: > Hi Richard, > > << Can I ask a quick supplementary? >> > > Of course. > > << The jpgs are at the moment much bigger than I need: I'll have to scale > them to about 40%. Should I process the jpgs into monochrome tiffs? Or > would the conversion cost me definition? >> > > By all means, process the files. If possible, do this yourself or have > someone with a good photographic eye do it. This ensures that you get the > image that you want. If you don't convert them, then someone (or worse, > some machine) at the printers will. This can sometimes result in a final > product different than you had envisioned. > > Black and white is a completely different medium than color and it usually > takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure that you get the images to your > satisfaction. For example, most black and white photos should have a bit > more contrast and a slightly higher adjusted exposure than the equivalent > color photograph. This helps to bring out relevant details that might > otherwise not be visible. (Keep in mind that I tend to be extremely fussy > about images and figures.) > > The conversion shouldn't really cost you any definition, since you're only > converting from color to black and white. Loss of "definition" seems to > happen when changing the physical dimensions of the image. The conversion > can be done in the photo program of your choice, but using Photoshop or Gimp > will give you a tremendous amount of fine control over the image appearance. > > Re: JPEG to Tiff conversion. If your source images are already JPEG, then > you shouldn't you don't really gain anything by saving it to TIFF (though I > would anyway). If you save back to JPEG, make sure that the "quality" bar > is set to 100%, or it will further compress the image and you will lose > additional data. > > Also, when you "scale the images", make sure that they aren't down sampled > (some image editing programs don't distinguish between the pixel dimensions > and the physical dimensions). You want the pixel dimensions to remain the > same, regardless of the physical dimensions. Most printing presses require > images that are at least 300 dpi, though bigger is *always* better. It's a > completely different mindset than when creating something for online > distribution. > > Thus, I would avoid Photoshop's "Save for Web and Devices" feature or > anything any-way similar. The entire purpose of "Save for Web and Devices" > and co. is to down sample, not scale. > > One final thought: as long as the source images are of sufficient size, I > would stick to scaling inside of LyX itself. There is a dialog box that > will let you specify the physical dimensions without messing with the source > image. > > Hope this is of some help. If you have any other questions, please don't > hesitate to let me know. > > Cheers, > > Rob >
