Image size...

[Chribo]

Hi,

this is probably so basic i should be blushing, but here goes...

I am trying to insert an image, in fact, I do insert an image, but even when I have a huuuuge JPEG in 600dpi or even a TIF, the image is shown really small on the page, when i then click to make the image fit the frame, the resolution is so bad I have to erase it.

Imagine you scan a matchbox at 600, the pic is a good quality and really large, then you import it and it is smaller than the matchbox iteself, then you increase it to fit the frame and the resolution is shot to hell.

Can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?

Thanks
Chris

[Chribo]

Another stupid question.... I have a few hundred old Photos, scanned in 300dpi and saved as JPEG...

Is this really the kiss of death? Do I have to rescan everything before using them?

Thanks
Chris

[Nermander]

The "preview" resolution Scribus uses on the screen can be set in the settings (and I think also individually for each image).

Try to export to PDF, and zoom the PDF, and you will see the real resolution.

[Wena]

Chribo, it depends on the printable size of your photos, so take for example  one that is 10in x 10 at 300 dpi then that is O.K. to fit onto a page of 5x5 the dpi in that case would probably be 600 dpi.

What I do is to import a photo into Gimp and in the "Image pul down" menu, I go down to print size change to inches that gives me the size it con be. If for example it shows the photo to be able to print at 10 x10 at 300 dpi or 5 x 5 at 600 dpi and you want to print at 5 x 5 then you can lower the dpi.

Now what I do, if the dpi is to small I put the photo into Inkscape and export it as a vector file "SVG".  That means you can make it even larger.

I have found that to work marvelous.

It is a little but of a problem, it will not need a graphic frame. But it will come onto your work very large so you have to scale it down to fit where ever you want it.

It would be great to get others opinion on this method.


Wena D Parry

[Chribo]

Hi Guys,

Thanks, your posts pointed me in the right direction.

I found another way, Right click - preview Settings - Full resolution.

On "Normal resolution" they look real bad.

Have you had any experiance with JPEG ? Some people say they are no good at all, but all scans were done really large, so They seem to be OK.

Best
Chris

[utnik]

hi chribo

of course you can use your jpg images, if they are of a good quality.
as the disc space goes cheaper every year, you may consider to store your images in a lossless format in the future.
what's really bad, is a cascade of jpg storages (each time, you alter something on the image and store it in jpg, you will loose some information.) – jpg is a final storing format!

utnik

[ruehara]

Hi Guys,

Thanks, your posts pointed me in the right direction.

I found another way, Right click - preview Settings - Full resolution.

On "Normal resolution" they look real bad.

Have you had any experiance with JPEG ? Some people say they are no good at all, but all scans were done really large, so They seem to be OK.

Best
Chris

There's nothing wrong with JPEG unless you're going to do some editing in which case you'd be much better off with a lossless form. Only go to JPEG when you are happy with the final image.

The easiest way to add images into a Scribus document is to draw an image frame of approximately the size you want, Ctrl-D to load an image into the box then right click in the frame and select "Adjust Image to Frame", another right click and "Adjust Frame to Image" and you're done !!

Cheers

[rlhess]

I hope this is not hijacking this thread, but I, too, have an image size issue.

Quickly, the scenario: My wife is heading up the 125th anniversary book publication committee for her (and my sons') high school. They wish to reprint the original 100th anniversary book which was typeset at over 2000 dpi. There is a bit of a fuss going on about using contemporary computer techniques that it won't look as good.

We scanned the original paste-ups for the 100th book at 1200 dpi on an Epson V700 as b&w TIF files.

Every time I go to import one of these files, as soon as I click on it, Scribus 1.4.1 freezes and crashes. No preview is ever shown. The files are about 17.5 MB and are 14039 x 10200 pixels, one bit per pixel.

I can downsize these to 600 dpi and that is one way we may use it, but I'd rather not as I think we're using a 1200 dpi printer...and the people worrying about quality need to see...

Any thoughts? I did try changing preview, but we don't get that far. The crash happens right in the image open dialogue when I right click on the image frame.

[rlhess]

A followup...

When I reduced the size somewhat, but still over 10000 pixels in the longer dimension, I was able to preview the image. But it would not load into the image frame. I reduced the longest side to about 9000 pixels and then it would load.

For the current project, this is fine. Even if I have full-page scans, I can break them horizontally into two separate TIF files and import them.

I would like to know what the hard limits are and where I might run into other size limits. I am currently running 50% of the memory capacity of the machine -- 12 GB on an Core i7 930.

So, I've solved this problem for now and will move ahead with Scribus. I have Adobe InDesign 2.0 (before the Creative Suite) and Adobe won't provide any credit towards an upgrade even though I've been keeping PhotoShop (CS2, CS3, CS5) and Lightroom (2,3,&4) current(ish). InDesign 2.0 does not have the problem described here and looks as good as Scribus within tolerances of printers, etc.

Microsoft Publisher 2003 (which I've never liked but the kids like it for school projects) doesn't look as good as the old InDesign and Scribus.

I know this is an oddball, but retyping and proofing the republished text (64 pages) when we have original photo-typeset text seems like the difficult way to go. We're going back to the Historical Society and scanning original photos again. These also at 1200 dpi for most and the nice thing is eventually we'll have colour images (a few) for the electronic copies if people want those instead of printed (Staples or online electrostatic printing) black-and-white.

Cheers,

Richard

Thanks!

Cheers,

Richard

[a.l.e]

@rlhess: you probably won't need your images at 1200 dpi.

if you're not on high end printers, i'm not sure that you can get any improved quality by going over 300 dpi...
(... just try it on your printer if you're not sure :-)

[Nermander]

I think there might be some confusions about numbers. DPI is often misused and/or confused for PPI.

http://www.andrewdaceyphotography.com/articles/dpi/
http://www.design215.com/toolbox/print_guide.php
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html

I don't really think the original book was printed at 2000 PPI image resolution.

Maybe 2000 DPI if we are talking about raster dots, buts that's a whole different thing. Todays 1200 DPI inkjet printers usually don't print more than 240 PPI.

As a.l.e says, anything above 300 PPI (image resoluation) is probably overkill. Ask your printer about the maximum resolution.