since I'm not a landscape photog (56k?!)

[terri]

Doxx - the second shot looks like a cartoon. And I mean that as high praise, seriously. I like all of them, but this one just stands out as a fantastical image! :thumbsup:

Fabulous.

 

[ksmattfish]

Canon 10D with a Sigma 15-30mm. I usually resize my images for internet use in a few steps - downsample - sharpen - downsample - sharpen. Photoshop actions come in very handy...

My question probably belongs in a different thread, but could you elaborate on this process?

I have a cheapo 48 bit flatbed scanner which I'm using to scan 8x10 BW prints. If I scan at anything less than 600 dpi I get crazy patterns particularly in the shadows. So I'm scanning at 600 dpi and wanting to know the best way to downsize to something more internet friendly. Thanks.

 

[doxx]

hello ks,

sounds like 600 dpi is the native (hardware) resolution of your scanner. Cheapo scanner softwares interpolate not as good as Photoshop does - that's why you get crazy patterns.

anyway, here is how it goes - assuming you use Photoshop for post processing

1.) scan @600 dpi (preferably in color, >16 bit) gives you nice huge files
with enough room for color changes etc.
change the white and black point in the scan software only, forget about all the other tools - Photoshop gives you more control
2.) save as tif or import directly into Photoshop
3.) downsample image to 300dpi (>image size >activate resample bicubic)
3a.) change image size to approx. 500px on the long side (nice size for web use)
4.) unsharp mask (see screen preview, adjust to you preference -approx. 100%, 1px radius, depends on the quality of your scanner, play with it)
5.) make color corrections, color balance etc. if necessary)
5a.) reduce bit depth to 8 bit (>image >mode)
6.) downsample image to 150 dpi
7.) sharpen again (lesser value than before, maybe 50%, 1px radius)
8.) downsample to 72 dpi (screen resolution)
9.) sharpen again (lesser value than before, 25%, 0.5px)
10.) save image for web (jpg, compress the file that you can bear the quality, but the file is small enough for web use, maybe around 20kb)

that's it - if you're a little bit experienced it takes you less than 2 minutes per image.

If I have a batch of pictures and want to do it super-quick - I recorded many steps in Photoshop actions. Just hit 'play action' and my computer does all the work automatically for me while I sip my Heineken

 

[ksmattfish]

Cool ,thanks!