Hi Neil
Thank you for taking the time to explain all about scanning as .tiff
rather than .jpg. I learned a lot from what you wrote and have kept
your email for future reference.
As it turned out Ronni was able, as she so often is, to pin point the
problem. Familiar with the Epson scanner I am using, her suggestion
to uncheck the option "Embed ICC Profile" immediately solved my
dilemma. I can now scan B&W photos as .jpg directly into iPhoto.
Perhaps, given your information, not as high quality as they might
otherwise be, but for the time being they are adequate for my needs.
I might add I have no idea what "embed ICC Profile" means!!!
Thanks again
Kind regards
Laura
On 29/05/2009, at 2:50 PM, Neil Houghton wrote:
Hi Laura,
Not sure if this will help but here goes.
You probably know that jpg files are compressed (to varying degrees
depending on the quality chosen) the trouble with editing these files is
that every time you change and save them they get re-compressed and each
time you lose a bit of quality - a bit like copying the old VHS video
tapes
(always copy the original don't copy the copies).
Because of this, the general rule of thumb is to do any editing work
in an
uncompressed (or at least lossless) format and only when you have
finished
make a compressed jpg file.
In your case, I would scan the files as TIFF files (which is
supported by
iphoto) then do any cropping or other editing. When you are happy
with your
final photo, save as a jpg (I usually save a copy of the edited TIFF
file as
well - just in case I want to do any further changes).
The point is that you don't have to (and shouldn't if you intend to
edit)
scan as jpg to end up with jpg. You say you can open your .pct files and
work with them OK - you could then save them as jpg files from iphoto
ready
to upload to snapfish (you need to use the export function in iphoto and
chose jpg from the options).
The main reason I would use TIFF (.tiff or .tif) rather than .pct is
that
TIFF is a pretty universal file format whereas .pct is mainly a mac file
format - but it should all work with .pct the same.
With the resolution, given plenty of hard drive space, I would always
start
with a higher resolution scan than you need for the final print. You
have to
remember that the image file is just pixels - you scan the image at x
pixels/inch and then print the image at a setting of y dpi (dots per
inch)
if x & y are the same then a scanned image will be printed at the
same size
but you can and may well want to change the resolution between
scanning and
printing.
Wikipedia probably explains it better than me:
DPI refers to the physical dot density of an image when it is
reproduced as a
real physical entity, for example printed onto paper, or displayed
on a
monitor. A digitally stored image has no inherent physical dimensions,
measured in inches or centimetres. Some digital file formats record
a DPI
value, or more commonly a PPI (pixels per inch) value, which is to
be used
when printing the image. This number lets the printer know the
intended size
of the image, or in the case of scanned images, the size of the
original
scanned object. For example, a bitmap image may measure 1000×1000
pixels, a
resolution of one megapixel. If it is labeled as 250 PPI, that is an
instruction to the printer to print it at a size of 4×4 inches.
Changing the
PPI to 100 in an image editing program would tell the printer to
print it at a
size of 10×10 inches. However, changing the PPI value would not
change the
size of the image in pixels which would still be 1000×1000. An
image may also
be resampled to change the number of pixels and therefore the size or
resolution of the image, but this is quite different from simply
setting a new
PPI for the file.
Quite often you might want to start with a number of photos of the
same size
and end up with a number of printed images the same (or similar) size
but
have some photos where you want to crop the image to get rid of unwanted
stuff around the edges. If you leave the resolution unchanged then
obviously
cropping the photo would result in a smaller printed image but by
changing
the resolution scan you can crop the image and then re-size the cropped
image back up to the desired print size. This would result in a lower
resolution - so by starting with a scan of a higher resolution you
can still
maintain a high print resolution.
Forgive me if the above seems to be stating the obvious - I guess my
point
is that you can always reduce a higher resolution without losing any
quality
other than that implied by the reduced resolution whereas trying to
increase
image resolution using software is never as good because the software
has to
"invent" the missing information by extrapolating the existing info.
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Neil
--
Neil R. Houghton
Albany, Western Australia
Tel: +61 8 9841 6063
Email: n...@possumology.com
on 29/5/09 1:10 PM, Laura Webb at el...@iinet.net.au wrote:
Please can someone help me with my problem.
So far I have scanned 12 of a number of old B&W photos to use in a
Birthday Book project.
As recommended recently by Susan, I am using Snapfish to upload my
photos before creating the book. It seems ideal for my purpose but
some of the editing tools e.g. cropping, are not available to Mac
users. So I need to put the B&W photos into iPhoto to edit them
before uploading.
The scanned images are in a folder on the desktop from where they can
be viewed without any trouble at all. However once in iPhoto they are
black, no image at all. I've tried using some of the adjustments
available to no avail.
Then I discovered that if saved as .pct rather than .jpg I can put
them into iPhoto edit them and do whatever I wish with them. The
trouble with that idea is that to upload to Snapfish photos have to
be jpg. So I scanned them all again as jpg but, apart from three
photos which, for some unaccountable reason are perfect, the rest are
blanks when put in iPhoto.
Would the resolution at which the photos are scanned have something
to do with the problem? This is currently 300 dpi and why it works
with some but not all photos is quite beyond me.
Kind regards
Laura
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