scanning images and making thumbnails

[Nick Arnett]

At 08:20 AM 6/5/97 -0700, Robinson,Linda wrote:
>
>I'm a novice at images. I'm trying to  find out what resolution is best to 
>scan photos and what software would help me make thumbnails or smaller 
>copies of the scanned photos. I hope these aren't stupid, ignorant 
>questions, but I'm ignorant in this area.  TIA
>Linda Robinson
>OCLC Information Center

Resolution depends on how the photos will be used, how much you can compress
them and how much storage you can allocate.  If they are pictures that are
for general viewing on-screen, then there's no reason to go beyond the
typical desktop scanner's resolution.  300 dpi would be plenty, as would
24-bit color data and medium quality compression.  Even large images can
then take up well under 100K each.  However, if they are photos that contain
a lot of important detail, you'd want to go high enough to preserve the
appropriate detail level and use lossless or low-loss compression.  In that
case, your storage needs could grow immensely.

For making thumbnails and other conversions, Debabelizer is a great application.

Nick
Product Manager, Categorization and Visualization

Verity Inc.
Connecting People with Information
Phone: 408-542-2164     Fax: 408-541-1600
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narnett at verity.com
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