"raoul" wrote in message
| What I see as missing and hope someone of Infinite Wisdom can distill is: What are the basic tips for scanning and importing a photo image to elements then manipulating that image into a print? My scanner is capable of producing 170MB (and bigger) image files that slow the program to a crawl. Hours of work to resize /sharpen a photo and get it to print on my photo printer – and it looks terrible. I’ll learn all the gee-whiz features as I go (if ever), for now I need some pointers on just getting a scanned photo to size to a specified size and print(yes the printer works fine and otherwise prints great photos). Just the basics please.
| Raoul
You do not mention the name of scanner, or printer. That would help answer your questions.
The basics of resolution, scaling and printing are explained in many different ways, but the result is the same for the end user. You have an original of fixed size. The scanner has different settings for sampling, such as 100 pixels per inch. Of course there are other settings, and you may not see this.
Your scanner software probably has presets, which are dependent on the output device you select. For instance, the software may target a specific printer and resolution, and then give you a sampling rate that is not too low, and not too high. The software may re-adjust its settings when you do a preview scan.
If you scan an 8" x 10" photo at 100 pixels per inch, the file size is 800 pixels by 1000 pixels, and probably consumes at least 2 MB on your disk.
I’ll end my intro right there. It takes time to digest and internalize the concepts. I have a question for you. If you have an 8" x 10" color print, how much resolution should you sample? 100, 300, 600, 1200, or perhaps some other number?
A reference that may help you can be found at:
http://www.scantips.com/basics01.html. Ed
The basics of scanning (pixel size/image size/output size/ppi/etc) are very well explained at Wayne Fulton’s fine site:
http://www.scantips.com There is also an excellent scan/print calculator there to show you at what maximum ppi to scan for your intended output and the like.
Highly recommended to understand the basics of pixel pushing.
Equally valid info there for digcam images also, as pixels are pixels 🙂
Mac
Should I assume you’re already familiar with issues of image resolution in relation to printing? Maybe not, so I’ll start there. And remember you’re asking for "down and dirty" so I won’t go into much detail about "whys".
Most people printing on inkjet printers go for a range of between 150 to 300 ppi (pixels per inch.) Let’s use 300 as our optimum, because that’s pretty common, although I’ve gotten very good prints as low as 240ppi. And I mention this because when you’re assessing the item you’re going to scan, you need to be thinking about what you want to do with it once it’s scanned and on your hard drive, and that will impact the resolution at which you scan.
For example, if you are scanning old 35mm slides, which we’ll call roughly 1 inch square, and you want to be able to get a good 4 X 4 print, you’re going to have to scan at a resolution high enough to allow you to increase that image size without falling below your optimum 300ppi resolution. That would mean a scan at 1200ppi.
If, however, you’re scanning a 3 X 3 print and want to reprint it at the same size, you can scan at 300ppi.
You’ll also need to make adjustment in scanning resolution if you want to scan a 4 X 6 photo, then crop it down and print, say, only half of the picture. In that case, I’d scan at about 600ppi to assure myself of enough pixels to work with.
You don’t say what kind of scanner software you’re using. Some of them can be accessed through Elements File>Import menu. If you have one like that, all you need to do is open Elements, access your scanner through File>Import, do your scan, and the image will open automatically in Elements.
If you don’t have a scanner supported by Elements, open your scanning software, determine the resolution at which you need to scan to give you the finished size you want, and then scan. You’ll be asked to choose a location on your hard drive for saving that new image file. After you’ve done that, open Elements, use File>Open to navigate to the folder in which your scan was saved and select it. It will then open within Elements and you can do your editing.
I’m a little unsure of what’s going on when you say you spend a lot of time resizing and sharpening, only to have the print look bad. Could you go into a little more detail on that, please?
This site is extremely good for getting information about scanning, so you might want to take a look at it.
<
http://www.scantips.com/>
And this site has a scanning calculator, which is fast and helpful in figuring out what resolution you should be scanning at for a specific project.
<
http://www.image-access.net/calc/index.html>
It’s a little hard to know exactly what things would be most useful to you, so please look this over and then repost to let us know what you need more information on. We’re really a friendly, helpful group here and want you to feel at home!
Raoul,
For Windows…
PSE is a color managed program. Though you can choose to run it in three modes (Edit>Color Settings); Full Color Management (Adobe RGB), limited CM (sRGB), or No CM, images onscreen within the program will always be viewed through your monitor profile. Could be best to try out ‘No CM’ first.
If you have a CRT and have not created a custom profile for it using additional hardware…
* Run the Adobe Gamma Utility in the Control Panel to calibrate your monitor and create a profile (first step in getting a good match between monitor and printout)
if need advice;
<
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7-colour/ps7_2.htm> (same for PSE as PS7)
note: if you have a custom hardware-made profile already, run the utility, loading a copy of said profile, don’t make any changes to it during utility and save at end of. Adobe Gamma Loader will load this profile when using program.
* make sure your system has ample free disk space (defragmented) and tons of RAM. * open PSE, import Twain for scanner
* scan at appropriate resolution for needs. A scan at 300 ppi will produce a good printout. If wanting to double printed size of original, scan at 600 ppi.
* close scanner program
* if scanned as 48 bit, PSE will reduce
* Save>Save As, choose .psd format
* reopen image and Edit>Duplicate
* grab title bar of image, drag downwards and close original behind it * grab tab of ‘Layers Palette’ and drag out of well to permanently reside on right side of screen * double click image layer in palette, answer yes
* right click layer >duplicate (unless your image is so huge your computer would struggle) * click on ‘eye’ icon of bottom layer to make invisible
* click on dupe layer
* Select>All
* bottom of L.Palette, click on Ying-Yang symbol, choose Levels Adjustment * for each color channel in Levels Adj, (drop down arrow) not using composite default RGB; move highlight and shadow triangles to be just under beginning and end of data in histogram. Go back to RBG and adjust middle slider if desired. (Colors can be adjusted by moving any of three sliders in each color channel)
* check for neutrality of white and black by getting dropper from toolbox and pulling ‘Info’ tab out of well
* might want to use features in ‘Hue and Saturation’ adjustment layer (add with Ying-yang choice) * use selection tools in toolbox, magnifier glass will draw box on specific area to zoom in, ctrl and plus or minus signs increase/decrease image size on screen
* can copy selected areas of image to new layer to edit independently (Ex: select>copy and paste to new layer>select>create Levels Adj layer
* can sharpen with Filter>Unsharp Mask (small amount, large radius for global or larger amount and smaller radius for fine sharpening)
* save image in stages as you edit
* save in .psd format to preserve layers for future editing * to resize; Image>Resize>Image Size. Program will interpolate for upsizing if ‘Resample’ and ‘Constrain’ boxes are checked in dialog box, otherwise not.
* Make appropriate settings in printer driver for media type etc…(with Epson) ‘Same as Source’ for destination output, under Advanced…Color Controls, Gamma 1.8, 1440 ppi works well for me
* select small area of temporarily flattened image, paste on new layer, make all other layers invisible, print out this little section checking for WYSISYG
* pull of ‘History’ tab from well, go back a few steps to before merging layers to return image to layered state
HTH
Nancy
Wow, Nancy, you did good! 🙂 Puts Mac and me to shame. 🙁
Nancy, that was certainly ‘Elements in a Nutshell’!! Should be put on the FAQ for all to see!
🙂
Chuck
p.s. Ying-Yang…???
Beth,
I was just longer winded 🙂
Beth/Nancy
Bookmark and "Tips" files keep growing!!
Thanks!
Kyle
Nancy, you have a point there…!!
🙂
Chuck
Nancy, Huh? What I got out of that was; scan at low dpi (300) or so if I don’t want to enlarge. Earlier post said scan at higher dpi (600) for enlarging-like from negs and slides. Remember, I just want to reliably get scanned photos to my printer with some resizing and basic editing – the result easily adjusted to it’s 4×6 inche output. Layers, special effects, paintbrushes – no.
My hardware: Epson 2400 flatbed, Printer HP100 (2400×1200 dpi) The epson twain feeds the scan directly to Adobe elements, and is capable of resolution to something like 3600 dpi.
What is this 48 bit stuff? How does it effect image quality? Thanks,
Raoul
Raoul,
Since you want images at about 300ppi for printing, to print at original’s size, one would scan at 300ppi. If you want to print out your image twice as large as the original, you must scan at twice the resolution. (or make a tic in the scanner’s driver for making the outcome 200%, same thing)
I don’t remember you saying if you were scanning slides or prints…
For scanning slides or film, obviously no one would want a print out at about 1" x 1", so you must increase the scanning resolution tons (factor in the desired increase in print size over the tiny slide’s size when figuring scanning resolution, in other words, for slides, scan at a very high resolution)
Your scanner doesn’t really have the capability to scan at 3600ppi, it’s upper limit is 2400ppi. The OPTICAL res. is 2400ppi. Manufacturers like to impress people with high numbers to broadcast all over the box….if you set the scanner to scan at anything above 2400, it is increasing the file size with interpolation. This means that all the data is not from true, scanned pixels. It is ‘guessing’ to add more pixels to the file, they are fabricated by the scanner. The same thing can be accomplished in PSE with resizing if you have the "Resample" box checked, it is called Upsampling.
It’s nice if a scanner is capable of scanning at 48 bits, but try to find a program that can use it….not. But it is advantageous I think for it to do so even though image editing programs change the bit number in order to accept it. The better the scanner, the better your results will be. You have a decent scanner and should get good scans. PSE can do a great job with the scanned image.
With image open in PSE;
* Image>Resize>Image Size
* type in 6 for the longest dimension of your image and let the other fill itself in * DO NOT have the ‘Resample’ box checked
* depending on the aspect ratio of your scanned file, after resizing you may end up with say 6 x 4.5. (glance at what the res. now says, if it is at least 200ppi, better to be 300 ppi, you are good to go)
* no problem with a 6 x 4.5 if you really need a 6×4…you need to crop a little off of one side * get rectangular marquee from toolbox
* at top, where it says ‘normal’, use drop down to get ‘fixed’ * type in 4 and 6, respectively
* click on your image
* place cursor inside image and drag box to include desired material (that which is outside box will be discarded)
* Image>Crop
There you have a 4×6.
I suggest you do some reading at
<
http://scantips.com>
EDIT: if the res. shows as a decimal number after resizing, just backspace to delete it…printers don’t understand decimals
Nancy:
OK I have the image sized and it is 1200 dpi. Now the issue is printing. I select page setup and select my HP photo printer, go to print preview and the image is the right size, but oriented wrong. The long axis of the image is on the short edge of the paper dimension. Clikn in the center and other help menu fluff doesn’t work. I’m burning up paper. This has got to be the most difficult software since AutoCad.
Raoul
Raoul,
WOW!! You have really scanned at an uneccassarily high resolution.
Raoul,
An image at 1200 ppi makes the file size huge to no advantage. I guess I didn’t go a good job at explaining that you want to end up with a file, at the size you want, which is about 300 ppi.
Raoul,
Or maybe you forgot to set the printer driver paper choices to landscape or portrait???
Raoul,
There is a learning curve, but thought you would be familiar with the printer driver settings as you said you were "Very" experienced using other programs and I assumed this to mean that included printing.
Just look on the ‘Paper’ tab in printer driver…change the orientation.
The desktop window in Element says 1200.25 pixels per inch. The print window that the HP printer brings up says 60 dpi. The image was scanned at 600 dpi resolution for a 25 Mb file size going into Element. Yikes. Saved, it shows up as a .bmp 23Mb file. Saved to JPEG (maximum) it is 4.33MB. I can’t see a spits worth of difference (on screen) between them. And none of this adds up.
OK, I just rotated the image on the "canvas" to make it fit the print format in print preview. Got it to print (nice result). If I set up the page in "page setup…" for my print format (it only prints one paper [4×6] in one direction) shouldn’t Element orient the image? Sorry for all the questions, but I can not make sense of the Adobe help info.
Raoul.
Raoul, I think you’re just confused and frustrated by now. Post a specific "task" you want to accomplish. It’ll be easier for us if we can help you through step-by-step. As it is, we’re guessing about what size image you’re scanning, what kind of cropping – if any – you’re doing during the editing stage, and the size print you want to get out of that printer. Instructions just get convoluted and confusing when we have to take "contingencies" into account.
Once you make it through the whole sequence one time you’ll be fine. We just gotta get you a success!
Beth, the current image was 4×6 and I want to print it to 4×6. (I gave up on cropping and resizing) How do I get Element to send the image to my printer without having to monkey around with rotating the image on the canvas or having it fit the set paper? I started with page setup, selecting the printer and selecting fit to media. This is supposed to be a basic program, I’m confronted with problems in every aspect of resizing and printing.
thanks,Raoul
Your scanner should have a "copy machine" function included with the scanner software for such a basic need as this. No need to get a photo editor involved.
Mac
OK, we’ll run through the scanning part, too, just to give you everything from point A.
Insert the 4X6 print and set the scanning resolution to 300ppi (if your scanner measures in dpi, ignore it – they just got the terms confused.)
File>Import>select the appropriate submenu for your scanner. (Mine is VistaScan, but yours would be different.)
Preview the photo prior to scan
Adjust scanning lines, if your software has that feature, so the scanner only spends time scanning the picture and not all of the surrounding glass.
Scan
The scanned image should open in Elements.
At this point, you have a 4 X 6 image that is the correct resolution for printing.
Make any color corrections you want, then,
File>Print Preview
(a 4 X 6 will fit on an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet, so you really shouldn’t need to move anything.)
Hit Print.
The only thing I can think of that may be confusing you is if you’re using 4 X 6 photo paper. Are you? If so, that IS going to require changing settings for your printer so it recognizes that you’re not using a standard letter-size sheet of paper. Is this where your problem is coming in? Note, though, that this wouldn’t be an Elements function; your printer takes over at this point, and you access that through Print Preview.
Give me a minute – I’ve gotta check this out! I’ve never printed on 4 X 6 and am not sure how to set it up! You read. I’ll look and come back. 🙂
I’m back.
First, keep in mind that Elements is not actually in control of the actual printing process. It takes you only to the Print Preview screen, and from there you work through your Epson (? is that what you said) printer software.
So, for the 4 X 6 image I wanted to print on 4 X 6 photo paper, here’s what I did:
(starting at the point where you’re looking at your edited image on the monitor and have decided it’s time to print.)
File>Print Preview
From the buttons on the right of the screen, choose Page Setup. This will move you into your EPSON software. For my HP, I get a screen called Page Attributes, and a place where I can select paper size. I scrolled to "4 X 6 Photo" and selected it. I hit OK. It went back to the Print Preview window, and I hit Print. My HP has another screen that comes up where I can make other choices about ink, etc., but I don’t know what will come up for Epson. I just hit Print again and got my photo.
Raoul,
Remember, jpg is a compressed format. It is used for the web for this reason, it is like using WinZip for documents, they get squeezed to a smaller size. In Explorer a jpg will say it is a certain size and that is the compressed size. That same jpg, when opened in PSE, will show itself to be a much larger file….because it is now opened (no longer compressed) you are viewing it. Save or close and it will be compressed again (ie smaller file size reported, it is not open)
You scanned at 600 ppi you say. Your goal is to produce an image that will print out the size you want and have a resolution of about 300 ppi. But your image is now 1200ppi. This means that you could have
* resized your image to print out at half the size of the original—-Example: if you scanned a 8×12 image at 600ppi and then with Image>Resize>Image Size, typed in either a 4 for the first number OR a 6 for the second number AND had the "Resample" box UNchecked—-in your your scan one inch contained 600 pixels, so the height was 8×600=4800 pixels and the width was 12×600=7200 pixels BUT when resizing to a 4×6, those 4800 pixels of the height have to be compressed into a 4" space whereas they used to occupy a 8" space (which doubles the resolution, 600 res. becomes 1200 res.)
Two problems here: the res. is ridiculously high and it is a decimal number (discussed this earlier)
There are a couple of places where you could have gone wrong…let me reiterate just one more time…
* Scan at 300 ppi (if for example you are scanning a 4×6 and want to print out at about a 4×6) * Scan at 600 ppi (if, for example, you are scanning a 2×3 but want to print it out as a 4×6). After scanning you would in PSE go to Image>Resize>Image Resize. Leave the "Resample" box UNCHECKED, have the "Constrain" box CHECKED and type in 4 for the shorter side. Do not type anything else in this box. Let the resolution number change on it’s own. As soon as you type in the ‘4’, the other dimension will change to ‘6’ and the resolution will remain at 300.
Resolution and Printed Size are INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL… the smaller the res., the larger the print and vice versa…the larger the printed size, the smaller (lower) the res.
In the printer driver…you are saying HP does not give you an option to print either a landscape or portrait photo? That’s insane. I’ve never had an HP.
OK, the workaround…
Orient your image in PSE to print correctly…
* Image>Rotate> "Canvas 90 degrees right:
make sure it is "Canvas"
You’re good to go
Beth,
Didn’t mean to step on your toes, was typing as you were answering, sorry
Beth,
Yeah, this is one sweet printer, borderless 4×6 prints at 2400×1200 resolution. Sharp as emulsion. Works great if you stay with the Hewlett-Packard software. Bone simple.
Raoul
OK, so I went off and then realized that since I didn’t really HAVE any 4 X 6 paper, I don’t know what direction it feeds into the printer. Sorry. So, my directions were assuming the paper went in being pulled by the 6 inch edge. If the paper actually loads so it gets pulled by the 4 inch edge, that’s where you would have to set it to print in Landscape mode. That, too, is done within Page Setup of the printer software, so there shouldn’t be any need to rotate the image while it’s still in Elements.
This is where it would be really good if we had a confirmation from you that you are actually printing to 4 X 6 paper, and then it would be super really good if we got somebody in here who owned an Epson printer!! (Hint, hint, people.)
The flow of this entire process is:
Elements will access your scanning software but does not have any control over the scan.
Elements is in complete control of any resizing or image editing.
Elements turns the job of printing over to printer software once you go to the Print Preview page.
I’m sure that since Elements is open throughout this entire process it’s easy to assume it’s in charge of the whole thing, but it isn’t. It’s designed only to interface with scanning applications and printer applications.
Nancy:
"Resolution and Printed Size are INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL… the smaller the res., the larger the print and vice versa…the larger the printed size, the smaller (lower) the res."
I have no idea what this means, but I do know that when the scan resolution is low the image quality in print is low. Why couldn’t a large print have high resolution? Isn’t that the definition of a sharp enlargement and selection?
Raoul
Raoul,
If all you want to do is make a 4×6 from a 4×6, as Mac said, your printer should have a setting to "Copy Image" or something akin to that. No need to even open PSE.
Raoul, I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m getting confused by now 🙂 but I saw the post to Nancy about resolution. Yes, you do want to print at higher resolutions. When the subject is resizing images, think of it kind of like this:
Starting out with a resolution of 300ppi, each inch of space (and we’re just talking one dimension here) is made up of 300 pixels (OK, technically that’s 9,000 pixels per each square inch of photo area, 300 across and 300 down.) If you decrease your resolution to 150ppi, it now only takes 150 of your pixels to spread out over one inch. So, 300 pixels now covers two inches instead of one. That is inversely proportional – the lower the resolution the larger the physical size of the image. The more pixels crammed into each square inch of surface, the higher the quality of your printed image.
Now I’ve gotta go back and see if anything else got posted while I was typing.
Print from a scanner?! That takes all the sport out of it! How would anyone’s hair ever turn gray doing it that way? I can feel myself totally spacing out. I’m off to the boob toob for the night. 🙂 I’ll check this thread again in the morning and see what kind of progress got made.
Nancy/Beth/Mac,
After a reboot the ‘copy’ option for my HP photo printer was available under ‘scan to copy’ and it does work. My other options will be the basic Epson photo enhancement tools, save to file and open with the printer software. Maybe after I meet my other goals for the year – learn another language, improve my guitar playing, and perfect my downwind sailing, I’ll consider reading a book on software (nah). Thanks to all for your kind help.
Raoul
Raoul,
You’re welcome. I hope you come back to the forum when you are ready to explore the wonders this program can perform on images, it is amazing and fun 🙂
Nancy
Nancy,
This discourse is an elegant distillation of the "meat & potatoes" of elements. Please amplify one step for me – I have not been doing this:
"check for neutrality of white and black by getting dropper from toolbox and pulling ‘Info’ tab out of well." Would you give me a step – by – step, and just what one should do with the numbers at hand. Thanks.
Ken
THANKS for all the details. I will study over this as I have started to do with the web site mentioned hear and earlier.
I decided on the HP 5470c and had no problems, didn’t even check resolution, so now I’m wonderring if I can get even better results with all these posts.
Marty
Ken,
I always have 3 palettes permanently out of the well, showing on my workspace; the Info Palette (top,right on screen)and the History + Layers Palettes nested together directly under Info (allowing only the the first box, RGB values, to show of Info).
The ‘neutrality’ is for checking the RGB values of a very dark and a very light pixel. I have the eyedropper set for a 3×3 sample. This is my test for color shifts or color casts. In both samples I know colors are good if each of the RGB values are very close to the same number. Example: ideal for darkest pixel would be 10-10-10 and ideal for lightest 250-250-250 BUT very acceptable would be something like 9-11-10 or 248-250-252. (If I have a mid-grey tone I would check that first, but I often don’t seem to have a mid-grey)
If my sample shows something like 250-250-225, I know my blue value is too dark in the highlights. To correct this I would pull up my Levels Adjustment Layer, have it set to the histogram for only the blue channel and move the highlight slider (on right) to the left about five values and recheck lightest pixel sample.
I do a similar thing with skin tone, as I often fight a slight excess of red in this area. Knowing that my family’s skin is somewhere in the neighborhood of 217-170-130, if sampling shows this to be way off kilter, I sometimes select the skin area and do a Level Adj. just for that. The actual numbers aren’t the only give-away to me on this, it is the approx. ratio between the three numbers which will give me a realistic skin tone. Being in shade or a well lit situation would of course put these numbers towards lighter or somewhat darker values.
I do strictly printing, so this process has worked well for me. I have double clicked the highlight eyedropper in Levels and set it permanently for 250-250-250, so my whitest pixels will put some ink down on the paper and likewise my black eyedropper is set to 8-8-8.
This is my neutrality check.
Nancy
Nancy,
Thanks. I did not know how to interpret the data, although Richard does go into it in his book. I have been using the curves tool and eye-balling the result.
I shall check with your technique, however. There is so much to master if one wants to make the effort. Have "rescued" some terrible pictures and getting better as I go along.
Ken
Ken,
I use add-on curves also quite frequently, I didn’t know you had that feature…You could do the same thing in curves though. As per my example, with a curve for the blue channel (after having separated the image into color channels) adjust that 225 to become a 250.
Nancy
