..: Imaging and Photoshop Tips for Brokies! :..

[LauraGigs]

Hey all,

I see a lot of great fanart and pics being shared on this site. Need any tips? Read on. Have any questions? Lemme know.

Tip #1: Jpegs.  Jpeg is the most commonly-seen image format because it compresses images way down — good for quick emailing and web page loading. It is a lossy compression method, however. In other words, each time you save an image as a jpeg (epecially with a 'low' quality setting), you lose some of the image data permanently, and it's next to impossible to repair. Images repeatedly saved as jpeg have significant quality loss. (See examples.)

What to do? Any image you get off the web will probably be a jpeg. If you will be working with it in any way before forwarding it, (compositing, resizing, etc.) save as a TIF. Keep saving it as a TIF as you work, until you're ready to post it to the web or email it. Then save it as a jpeg once, paying attention to the quality settings in your dialogue box. Saving it "down" even to 95% can shrink the file size all you may need.

[LauraGigs]

Tip #2: Greyscale Images.  Greyscale images should be in Greyscale mode. This will truly neutralize the grey color and make your file size much smaller without any quality loss!

You can tell what color mode an image is in by looking at the top bar of your image window. It will say 'RGB' 'CMYK' or 'Grey' at the end. In Photoshop, go under Image to Mode and click Greyscale. It will ask 'Discard color information?'. Hit OK. (Any Imaging or Paint program has this capability too.)

[belbbmfan]

hi laura,
great idea for a thread!
i have figured out how to post pictures (i load them on photobucket), but i don't know how to change the size (larger, smaller)?

thanks!

[Arad-3]

Hi Laura,
This is going to be a very interesting and helpful thread.

  Iv'e learned something new already! Thanks!


Geri

[Lumière]

hi laura,
great idea for a thread!
i have figured out how to post pictures (i load them on photobucket), but i don't know how to change the size (larger, smaller)?

thanks!

Hey Fabienne ..

Photobucket gives you different "Uploading Options" when you are trying to upload a picture.
- You just click on the Uploading Options link below the textfield where you "Browse" for the pic to upload.
- You will then see different options for the image size and it'll load it to that size for you!
That is one option.

There is another alternative to "resizing" a pic when you post it here.  You will have to use the "width" or "height" attributes to specify the width/height you desire.

For example:
Here is a sexy picture of Ennis (regular size):

[ IMG ]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i285/Lucise/Fanart/5d06b725.jpg[ /IMG ]
(I put the spaces before and after the IMG tags here to prevent it from actually loading the image .. )



Here is the same pic "resized" (to width of 200):

[ IMG width=200 ]http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i285/Lucise/Fanart/5d06b725.jpg[/IMG]
(This doesnot actually resize the picture itself..)






Hope this helps! 

[belbbmfan]

Hey Fabienne ..

Hope this helps! 

thank for that info! I'll try this.

oh, and great choice of picture there! 
can't have too many of those

[Lumière]

thank for that info! I'll try this.

oh, and great choice of picture there! 
can't have too many of those

I thought it might be a good incentive!   

[Shuggy]

If you "resize" or "resample" pictures down before you upload them, they will up- and download that much faster, but of course enlarging them will lose a lot of quality. Just changing the image size on the browser means people who download them will get them at full size.
 

[LauraGigs]

It sounds like your scanner is automatically adjusting/calibrating for each image it scans.  In other words, it's taking an average color density of the top of the page, and doing the same with the bottom — therefore giving each one a slightly different output.  You may be able to turn off "automatic color-correction" (or whatever your scanner interface calls that function). Then if any color-correction is needed, import both images into the same Photoshop file and correct them simutaneously.

From looking at that image, it looks as if the colors are very similar, but there is a "shadow" along the edge of the top image that is making them look mismatched. 

If you were to make your two scans with some "overlap" (a common area scanned on both), you could layer one over the other and nudge until that area is covered.  That might help with that shadow and make them match better.

Do you know about adjustment layers? If mismatch is still a problem, have each scan on a seperate layer and give one of them an adjustment layer. This allows you to keep working over and over in the correction interface without commiting the correction until you choose to flatten it (or save a flattened copy).

Let me know if that helps . . .   -L.

[LauraGigs]

I write a nice answer and he deletes his question...  okaaay...   

<violins playing for me>