Image size problem/ resolution. What steps do i need to take, scanning pencil/pen line drawings???

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Image size problem/ resolution. What steps do i need to take, scanning pencil/pen line drawings???

aaron mccormick – 03:30pm Nov 11, 2003 Pacific
….Is there a standard setting that can just put your scanned image onto the screen at a solid 100% ‘image size’ every time, regardless of what your ppi, resolution is set at? (mine might be set too high)…How do I scan a single small section of a large drawing and then crop it and change the image size, without including any surrounding information, such as what the cropped drawing was scanned with (such as other surrounding drawings, paper, scanner bed) Knowing this, i might be able to get a high resolution scan of a small part of a drawing…
Scanning with high ppi (300-600), one section from a drawing could be enlarged with image size adjustments, etc., but here’s the problem… the computer seems to first be in the habit of putting a scanned image into whatever image size it wants to.. it is usually monsterously big (filling up the entire monitor screen pleasingly, but still reading at a 18% or 66% or so, size.) compared with what the computer can manipulate efficiently. Perhaps there is way that someone knows of, to make a scanned image just come out as 200% size on the screen (not necessarily looking that way relative to actual inches/ centimeters of the drawing’s size, but it doesn’t matter) Then… considering the resolution looked sharp at this 200%, 9which it would, because i set it that way) I could just shrink it down to 100% ( or some other comfortable size) Better yet, is there a way to transform file sizes that are scanning too big, into smaller file sizes efficiently ? Why should the computer have to spend time reading these files sizes, just in order to convert to a different in format? ( i use jpegs )
thanks for you help!, confused and frustrated photoshop user

I might be badly missing the mark, here, but you can just use Control – (minus sign) to quickly reduce the size of the image that’s displayed on your screen.

I honestly am having trouble figuring out whether you’re having problems with the way things are displaying on the screen or whether it’s the digital image file itself that you need help managing.

Is it possible you’re getting what you’re seeing on the screen confused with the size of your image? That little percentage figure that displays by your image really has no relation to what you’d get if you printed something.

And I apologize if I’m getting this further out in left field! 🙂

aaron,

I read your post as Beth does, I think you are confusing screen display size (which notes the percent of magnification) with image size. Of course the way you set things up depends on if your intention is to have your scanned, cropped drawing suitable for printing of if it will just be for web/email use.

I recommend you read the information Wayne Fulton has on his excellent site to get a clearer understanding of scanning etc.

<http://wwww.scantips.com>

However, it sounds like your scan is including more of the drawing than you require. On my Epson scanner, after a prescan (which passes over the whole document), I have the option of dragging a box to isolate and surround only a portion of the document/drawing. The data within the box is what will be scanned when you hit the scan button in your scanning software.

If you desire a printout of this area and for it to print out at the same physical size as the original, scan at about 300ppi (if it is a line drawing I would scan at a much higher resolution). If the scanned area is to be printed, for example, at twice the size of the original, then you would scan at 600ppi. After receiving your scan at 600 ppi in PSE, you would go to Image>Resize Image and with Resample UNCHECKED merely change the resolution to 300 to obtain a double size image when printed out.

If you only care about screen viewing, after selecting the area you desire to keep from the drawing with the box, you could just scan that at like 96ppi and adjust somewhat in PSE if needed. To fill up a monitor’s screen only requires an image about 800×600 pixels, depending upon what resolution you have your monitor set to.

It might be preferable to scan the small selected area at a high resolution (say 600 ppi, or more depending on your scanner and your goal for the image). If you did it this way, you would have flexibility in being able to either print it out (same size or twice as large for example) or you could use Image Resize in PSE to reduce the number of pixels in that scanned image so it would fit nicely on a screen.

The % figures you are seeing in PSE, is just telling you the magnification for the DISPLAY, it has no bearing on what size your image would print out. However, at 100% magnification (the same as actual pixels)if all of your image fits on your screen, then you would know it contains about the right number of pixels for close to full screen viewing. To aim for an image that fills someone’s monitor, you would want an image about 800 pixels by 600 pixels. If you were wanting to print that image, you would need like 200-300 pixels per inch. So to print out a 4×4 image, you would need an image of about 800-1200 pixels on each side (200×4=800) (300×4=1200).

Enjoy the read at the website I mentioned and come back if you have a question.

Nancy

Aaron,
I am having a problem fully understanding your inquiry. Be that as it may, I scan using the guidelines on the following calculator, and that works well for me:
<http://www.image-access.net/calc/index.html>
Ken