Different honeys

[RichardS]

I think Winnie-the-Poo puts it particularly well...

"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[Colin Wilson]

I don`t know if you have a digital camera (or can get access to one), but reducing the size of the image is really pretty easy. I use a program (free) called Irfanview for most of my simple image manipulation, and there`s an option under the "image" menu to "resize / resample". You simply tell it the width (or height) or a percentage you want the image shrinking by and hit OK - it will resize the picture instantly, and you just "save as" a different filename if you don`t want to overwrite the original picture.

If you save the image as a .jpg file you will typically see the best compression. A .jpg may also give you a "quality" option that allows you to alter the compression ratio - the lower the %percentage, the lower the resultant image detail - about 75% is the usual setting, but even 50% is passable, and in a quick test reduced an image from from 27k at 80% to

20k at 50% (320x214). I`d stick the results on a webpage, but my b***dy webpage server has fallen over, but to "describe" the difference, you could still make out fine whiskers on my dog at 80%, but at 50% the finest details were all but gone (the overall image was still good though, and perfectly usable for normal purposes)

You might also want to get a set of plugins that go along with the main program (also free) which will allow it to handle a lot more types of files.

[T i m]

Hi Colin,

I'll second the use of IrfanView for such tasks.

I found it a few years ago when it was even simpler than it is now and was probably the first example of true 'freeware' that was actually very good!

It's one of the first things I install (after the OS) on a PC these days, along with ZoneAlarm, AVG, AdAware, Popup Stopper etc.

I've had a digital camera for over 6 years (Fuji DX5, DX7, DX10 now F420) and have used IrfanView to quickly 'crop' and / or resize the pictures. I rarely 'retouch' the pictures as they are often engineering refrence shots rather than portraits etc.

All the best ..

T i m

[Dev Null]

I'll give my vote to Irfanview too - it's an excellent utility.

Remember that you may not need a camera if you have a scanner - for articles that are essentially a relief moulding or have a plane surface you can get rather good results by placing the article directly on the scanner bed (taking care to avoid scratching) and covering with a black matte fabric rather than trying to close the lid.

In past years there's been quite a bit on using scanners instead of camera on the jewellery and craft USENET groups.

In most cases that's quite true - however if you've a picture/image that has large blocks of similar colour (eg black/white or charts for eg. ) you may well find that .gif provides a lower file size for the same visual quality. JPEG optimisation is a bit of a black art (or red/green/blue one!) and the compression/quality trade-off isn't that straightforward. It's possible to have a small file size that your machine expands massively in memory whilst retaining a lot of the original detail. (IN SOME CASES!)

Irfanview -

Regards,

DN

[Dave Liquorice]

Sorry Mary missed this for some reason. See other followups for a possibly simpler program to use. I use Paint Shop Pro, it has a great many image adjustment/retouching tools. What I like about it is with compressed images it calculates the resultant filesize and tells you along with a view of the compressed image, so you can balance filesize and quality "on the fly" without having to commit and see if the results are suitable.

A number of other programs just have a "quality" percentage whatvere that means and don't give previews or filesize so you are working blind. You could stick with a known percentage but then the filesize will vary depending on the detail in the image, I use *very* varying amounts of compression to get the 20k filesize with very little impact on the preceived image.

[Mary Fisher]

Have had one for years!

I do all that on an almost daily basis.

I can do all that but that's not what I thought Dave was suggesting. If it was I apologise to both of you.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

I do that for records of all our smaller products, the result is better than from my camera - and the process is shorter. But sometimes I have to use a light coloured fabric for maximum contrast. Occasionally I've played and used an appropriate fabric background.

living under a stone ...

Thanks,

Mary

[Dave Liquorice]

Must try this with SWMBO'd eBay items which are flat, no space to permenantly install the scanner though and I bet doze will get "upset" if it constantly is (or isn't) "found".

Is that more to get a dark background than to blot out what the scanner can see? What depth of field does a scanner have, if it's only an inch or so above the bed and the ceiling is the right colour do you need to cover the item?

Bearing in mind the 256 colour limit of gif. Photographs generally don't convert down to 256 colours very well any subtle shading ends up as colour bands, can look very pretty.

[Mary Fisher]

I use Corel Photo House which seems to do all that ... but I still don't understand why that would help on my website. Perhaps I should talk to you direct, I think I'm missing something.

Mary.