[Groop]Gary Learns About Scanners

[Take-One Productions]

I sent this out last night--I'm not sure if it got out, though... so, 
here it is... sorry if it's a repeat.. :-p

--



Hi, Gary--thought I'd jet you a quick email, and mini-lesson in 
resolution... okay... *deep breath*

Pixels are the little dots of light that draw all the stuff on your 
screen. T.V.s have these too. The higher resolution your screen is 
set at, the more "pixels" it's utilizing to draw graphics (graphics 
become sharper, more distinct at higher resolutions--blocky and large 
in appearance at lower resolutions because it's using fewer pixels to 
make up the images)

Dots Per Inch are how many little dots your printout will have every 
square inch of the image. Dots per inch is different in that it is 
more a resolution for PRINT, rather than for your computer SCREEN.

So, rules of thumb:

72 dpi (dots per inch) is SCREEN RESOLUTION (doesn't matter how many 
pixels for scanning, necessarily--there are always 72 dots per inch 
making up your computer screen--that's all it can possibly do)... 150 
dpi is a higher resolution, but unneeded since you only need 72 (and 
it's why the pictures "appear" larger on your screen--it uses more 
screen space to draw it in 72dpi mode.) That's a resolution better 
set for medium-quality PRINTOUTS, and not necessary for 
screen-viewing or websites... 300 dpi will generally result in a HUGE 
image on your screen (again, only 72dpi being required, so it 
"appears" bigger on your screen), but is a perfect setting for 
printing out photos for magazines, newspapers, comic books (hehe) or 
a high-res color printer... don't use this unless you're going to 
want PRINT resolution... 72dpi will be just fine for sharing online...

So, my recommendation would be to leave your scanner set at 72 dpi 
('cause any more is just a waste)... adjust your PIXELS to the size 
you want. If you're scanning photographs, generally the scan software 
will allow you to choose a size for your image: a size of 640X480 is 
usually okay (the other way around for an image that's tall rather 
than wide). This give a decent size for on-screen viewing. If you 
scan it around that size and it still looks too big, reduce it 
slightly. Sometimes, 300x150 or so is okay... (note that these aren't 
absolutes--just vague rules of thumb).

Now, as far as saving the images is concerned, I would recommend 
saving them as .jpg's with a setting of 8 on the quality scale. This 
will make the image small, but not so horrendously compressed that 
the artifacts from the jpeg compression algorithm start showing up... 
Generally, if your image is around 80K or so, it's fine (and quite 
common) for internet sending...

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. Just 
don't ask Groo.

I look forward to seeing the pictures.

-Scott
  Producer/Director
  Take-One Productions