How to reproduce high quality photographic images with Photoshop??

M
Posted By
mikedunny
Jul 14, 2006
Views
760
Replies
13
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Closed
I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.

I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

I’m printing on an HP color laserjet 1500L.

My question is, how can get my prints to look more like the original cd cover and not a lower quality reproduction?

I can’t figure out if it’s something in the Scan size, how I’m saving it, or my printer??

ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Mike

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J
jaSPAMc
Jul 14, 2006
On 14 Jul 2006 11:48:06 -0700, "MikeD" found these unused words floating about:

I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.
I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

I’m printing on an HP color laserjet 1500L.

My question is, how can get my prints to look more like the original cd cover and not a lower quality reproduction?

I can’t figure out if it’s something in the Scan size, how I’m saving it, or my printer??

None of the above … your scanner is not reducing the halftone of the original into a ‘continuous’ graphic, thus when you re-pring with a 600 dpi (actually lower in colour) printer you’re exagerating the previous halftoning.

You need to ‘descreen’ the image upon/while scanning!

ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Mike
FA
Frank Arthur
Jul 14, 2006
What’s a "descreen"? and how do you do it?

"Sir F. A. Rien" wrote in message
On 14 Jul 2006 11:48:06 -0700, "MikeD" found these unused words floating about:

I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.
I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

I’m printing on an HP color laserjet 1500L.

My question is, how can get my prints to look more like the original cd cover and not a lower quality reproduction?

I can’t figure out if it’s something in the Scan size, how I’m saving it, or my printer??

None of the above … your scanner is not reducing the halftone of the original into a ‘continuous’ graphic, thus when you re-pring with a 600 dpi
(actually lower in colour) printer you’re exagerating the previous halftoning.

You need to ‘descreen’ the image upon/while scanning!

ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Mike

J
jaSPAMc
Jul 14, 2006
Google.com

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:12:13 -0400, "Frank Arthur" found these unused words floating about:

What’s a "descreen"? and how do you do it?

"Sir F. A. Rien" wrote in message
On 14 Jul 2006 11:48:06 -0700, "MikeD" found these unused words floating about:

I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.
I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

I’m printing on an HP color laserjet 1500L.

My question is, how can get my prints to look more like the original cd cover and not a lower quality reproduction?

I can’t figure out if it’s something in the Scan size, how I’m saving it, or my printer??

None of the above … your scanner is not reducing the halftone of the original into a ‘continuous’ graphic, thus when you re-pring with a 600 dpi
(actually lower in colour) printer you’re exagerating the previous halftoning.

You need to ‘descreen’ the image upon/while scanning!

ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Mike
R
Rizla
Jul 15, 2006
What’s a "descreen"? and how do you do it?

Your scanner software should have "Descreen" as an option that you can select / deselect somewhere in the program, before you scan anything. As for how it works etc. go with the Google suggestion 😉
T
Tacit
Jul 15, 2006
In article ,
"MikeD" wrote:

I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.
I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

Look at the thing you are scanning with a magnifying glass. You will see that the image is not continuous; it is made up of dots. Your eye blurs the dots together and creates the illusion of smooth tones of color, because the ability of the human eye to see small areas of color is extremely poor; but the scanner "sees" the dots. Anything that is printed with a series of dots (called a "halftone screen") tends not to scan well.

Your scanner software should have a "descreen" option that will help reduce these dots.

To make matters worse, you are saving a JPEG. Why are you using JPEG instead of TIFF? JPEG is "lossy." It deliberately degrades the quality of a picture in order to make the file size smaller. The JPEG file format was invented for situations where the size of the file on disk is critical, and image quality is not important. If you care about image quality, do not use JPEG. JPEG should only be used when you have a clear and good reason why it absolutely has to be JPEG and no other image format will work.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Nanohazard, Geek shirts, and more: http://www.villaintees.com
M
Mike
Jul 17, 2006
In article , says…
In article ,
"MikeD" wrote:

I’m currently using Photoshop 6. Right now we are reproducing out of print CDs for small record labels. I scan the covers at 300 dpi and have a template that is a 300 dpi psd file at about 54mb.
I merge the scan onto the template, add some text and save the file as a high quality jpeg, usally at about 6mb.

When I print the new jpeg, the front cover that was originally a very crisp photographic image comes out a bit pixelated, definitely not the most crisp image you can get.

Look at the thing you are scanning with a magnifying glass. You will see that the image is not continuous; it is made up of dots. Your eye blurs the dots together and creates the illusion of smooth tones of color, because the ability of the human eye to see small areas of color is extremely poor; but the scanner "sees" the dots. Anything that is printed with a series of dots (called a "halftone screen") tends not to scan well.

Your scanner software should have a "descreen" option that will help reduce these dots.

To make matters worse, you are saving a JPEG. Why are you using JPEG instead of TIFF? JPEG is "lossy." It deliberately degrades the quality of a picture in order to make the file size smaller. The JPEG file format was invented for situations where the size of the file on disk is critical, and image quality is not important. If you care about image quality, do not use JPEG. JPEG should only be used when you have a clear and good reason why it absolutely has to be JPEG and no other image format will work.
Although in general agreement regarding the use of JPEG images, a 120 mm x 120 mm square CD cover should be pretty
close to pin-perfect if it is stored as a 6 MB JPEG. After all, a typical 8M-pixel digital SLR image is saved in 4 or 5
MB if the JPEG option is chosen, and can be normally be printed as an 8×10 inch image with very little evidence of
compression artifacts.

Mike
B
BD
Jul 17, 2006
I can’t figure out if it’s something in the Scan size, how I’m saving it, or my printer??

I’ve used the ‘Median’ filter in photoshop to get by this problem, with some success.
T
Tacit
Jul 19, 2006
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Although in general agreement regarding the use of JPEG images, a 120 mm x 120 mm square CD cover should be pretty
close to pin-perfect if it is stored as a 6 MB JPEG. After all, a typical 8M-pixel digital SLR image is saved in 4 or 5
MB if the JPEG option is chosen, and can be normally be printed as an 8×10 inch image with very little evidence of
compression artifacts.

With a continuous-tone image that’s good quality to begin with, sure.

However, keep in mind that the original poster is scanning images that have already been halftoned. JPEG compression is particularly severe around edges, and a scan of a halftoned image has a lot of edges. Such an image will quite likely suffer disproportionately from JPEG compression, far more than you might expect from a similar amount of compression on a similar continuous-tone image.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, literature, kink: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
Nanohazard, Geek shirts, and more: http://www.villaintees.com
K
KatWoman
Jul 20, 2006
"tacit" wrote in message
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Although in general agreement regarding the use of JPEG images, a 120 mm x
120 mm square CD cover should be pretty
close to pin-perfect if it is stored as a 6 MB JPEG. After all, a typical 8M-pixel digital SLR image is saved in 4 or 5
MB if the JPEG option is chosen, and can be normally be printed as an 8×10
inch image with very little evidence of
compression artifacts.

With a continuous-tone image that’s good quality to begin with, sure.
However, keep in mind that the original poster is scanning images that have already been halftoned. JPEG compression is particularly severe around edges, and a scan of a halftoned image has a lot of edges. Such an image will quite likely suffer disproportionately from JPEG compression, far more than you might expect from a similar amount of compression on a similar continuous-tone image.

OK he is scanning artwork (NOT HIS and copyright by someone else) to put on copies of CD’s (sure sounds like piracy to me)
M
mikedunny
Aug 3, 2006
Our company has deals with record labels to produce out of print titles on their behalf. Just looking for a way to improve the process.

KatWoman wrote:
"tacit" wrote in message
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Although in general agreement regarding the use of JPEG images, a 120 mm x
120 mm square CD cover should be pretty
close to pin-perfect if it is stored as a 6 MB JPEG. After all, a typical 8M-pixel digital SLR image is saved in 4 or 5
MB if the JPEG option is chosen, and can be normally be printed as an 8×10
inch image with very little evidence of
compression artifacts.

With a continuous-tone image that’s good quality to begin with, sure.
However, keep in mind that the original poster is scanning images that have already been halftoned. JPEG compression is particularly severe around edges, and a scan of a halftoned image has a lot of edges. Such an image will quite likely suffer disproportionately from JPEG compression, far more than you might expect from a similar amount of compression on a similar continuous-tone image.

OK he is scanning artwork (NOT HIS and copyright by someone else) to put on copies of CD’s (sure sounds like piracy to me)
K
KatWoman
Aug 4, 2006
thanks for the explanation
I think unless you can get larger artwork (like from an old vinyl album cover)) or the original artwork in digital format your results can not be perfect.
You are having to scan a small orig and it has the sheen and texture of the paper
Have you tried shooting copies on a digital camera instead of the scanning? sometimes you can eliminate the shine problems by good lighting.

"MikeD" wrote in message
Our company has deals with record labels to produce out of print titles on their behalf. Just looking for a way to improve the process.
My camera has a setting for text and macro is helpful.
KatWoman wrote:
"tacit" wrote in message
In article ,
Mike wrote:

Although in general agreement regarding the use of JPEG images, a 120 mm
x
120 mm square CD cover should be pretty
close to pin-perfect if it is stored as a 6 MB JPEG. After all, a typical
8M-pixel digital SLR image is saved in 4 or 5
MB if the JPEG option is chosen, and can be normally be printed as an 8×10
inch image with very little evidence of
compression artifacts.

With a continuous-tone image that’s good quality to begin with, sure.
However, keep in mind that the original poster is scanning images that have already been halftoned. JPEG compression is particularly severe around edges, and a scan of a halftoned image has a lot of edges. Such an image will quite likely suffer disproportionately from JPEG compression, far more than you might expect from a similar amount of compression on a similar continuous-tone image.

OK he is scanning artwork (NOT HIS and copyright by someone else) to put on
copies of CD’s (sure sounds like piracy to me)
S
smartipants
Aug 4, 2006
I often have this same problem when scanning and archiving newspaper articles/photos. The descreen setting in my scanner doesn’t do a great job, so I follow up with "despeckle" in the Filter/Noise menu. Also, you might try scanning at 4 or 5 times the final output size and then reducing to the final output size in PS and sharpening. Different methods work sufficiently on different images, so I try an assortment of steps to get the best results, including the other good suggestions posted here. HTH. :o)
J
jaSPAMc
Aug 4, 2006
On 4 Aug 2006 10:33:07 -0700, "smartipants" found these unused words floating about:

I often have this same problem when scanning and archiving newspaper articles/photos. The descreen setting in my scanner doesn’t do a great job, so I follow up with "despeckle" in the Filter/Noise menu. Also, you might try scanning at 4 or 5 times the final output size and then reducing to the final output size in PS and sharpening. Different methods work sufficiently on different images, so I try an assortment of steps to get the best results, including the other good suggestions posted here. HTH. :o)

That’s a good way, but add in a slight ‘median’ adjustment before reducing. It can really ‘smooth’ out the screen.

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