posted 07-22-2003 03:08 PM               

My current problem is the fine quality of photos that many of your sites have. Did you guys scan your items or photograph them and then scan them in? I've tried scanning but there just not coming out as nice as what I'd like them to be... or as nice as I see on your sites.

posted 07-22-2003 05:04 PM               

Getting good scans is something of an art form in itself. The optimal way is to scan at a much higher resolution and then resize the image to the pixel size that you need for the page. It helps to use a decent graphics program to fine tune the image using some filters such as despeckle, contrast adjustment and the best filter of all: unsharp mask. Lastly saving as a .jpg by selecting the optimum quality versus filesize which comes from experimentation.

Of course, all that isn't required unless you want good quality images that occupy a relatively low filesize so that those visitors on dial up modems are able to view the site successfully and enjoyably.

One of the problems you may be encountering is the tendency for lithos to acquire a "Moire" effect when scanned, that sort of colored banding. If this happens then check in your scanner program as some have a Moire filter that you can enable. If you dont have this then the best way I have found is to scan at 300dpi then resize the scan, this all but eliminates the Moire.

Good luck!

posted 07-22-2003 05:06 PM            

I'm only guessing here that what you may doing is finding you have scanned an A4 size image in on scanner . Now when you import it to web page it is overfilling your web page ?
Look at the web page source and find the line with the image reference in it ?

Look at size of image on that same line? Now reduce that size to - say - 1/8 th original dimensions for length and width.
Now refresh your web page. Is that better ?

I find JPEG images are best but some folk will use GIF and even TIFF - with ocassional BMP images being used.