Resizing for publication

[dadsm3]

I'm hoping that some will take a few minutes to help me out here.
The Hamilton Spectator has an "Eye on the Area" spot on the front page of the classifieds that gives amateurs a chance to post a shot. They liked the following because it includes a popular Hamilton landmark, the Birk's Clock.
They asked me to resend a higher res file of this shot, saying "...we need it to be at least 200dpi and 8" wide for best print quality." It must be a jpeg. This was posted in the gallery here a few days back, and is a 336KB file.
FYI, I scanned the neg with a KM Scan Dual IV at 3200dpi as a colour neg ay 16bits, uploaded to PS, greyscaled & tweaked, then under the "Help" header hit 'Resize'.
-Popup "What will this image be used for?" Print/Online, I hit "online"
-Popup "What is the desired size?" For gallery posting here, I just make the width 650-750 pixels.
- Then I go to "Image", and change it from 16bits to 8bits (it won't allow me to jpeg in 16bits).
I save the changes and always (almost) end up with a file of 250-350KB, good for gallery posting here.
If someone could walk me through a method to get the Spec the quality they require to print this I'd be eternally grateful....
Thanks,
Mike

 

[JoeFriday]

Mike, if you are hoping to use this same file, I have bad news for you.. I don't think you'll be able to upsample it adequately for printing.. it's about a third of required size

I'd say your previous method was fine.. but instead of selecting "online", you should select "print" as your output size.. or better yet, set the size manually.. the newspaper is asking for an image that is 1600 dpi wide

btw.. great shot!

 

[dadsm3]

Thanks Brett.....I was planning on rescanning. I did try hitting "print" last night, and it asked me the size in inches...I hit 8" and the resulting file was 4.53MB and was HUGE, when I emailed it it was so big you could only see a 1/4 of the shot on your screen. Even when I opened the file the width was 12" or so on my screen.

 

[JoeFriday]

you did it right the second time, Mike.. a 4.5 MB file would be about right... files appear at 72 (or 75) dpi on a computer screen.. but it's all based on pixels, not inches.. so you can have a 1" physical size that's 4800 dpi.. which would translate to a 300 dpi printable size at 16".. and on the computer screen it would appear to be 66.67" if viewed "full size"

it's all about pixels (dpi)

 

[jlw]

I'd say your previous method was fine.. but instead of selecting "online", you should select "print" as your output size.. or better yet, set the size manually.. the newspaper is asking for an image that is 1600 dpi wide

Quick correction to Joe's info, which I'm sure was just a typo:

What they are asking for is not a file which is 1600 "dpi" wide -- they are asking for a file that is 1600 PIXELS wide.

We know that because they asked for a file that had a resolution of 200 pixels per inch, and was 8 inches wide. 200 x 8 = 1600 pixels total.

Your scanner should have no trouble generating a file that contains this much data.

Assuming that your shot uses the full frame of a 35mm negative, which is 1-1/2 inches wide, then the scan resolution you need to get 1600 pixels is 1600/1.5, which equals 1,067 pixels per inch. If your scanner lets you set scan resolution directly, just choose whatever value is the next larger than that.

Or if your scanner has a dialog where you can set the size of the final image in pixels (you may need to use an "Advanced" mode for this) just tell it you want the image width to be 1600 pixels.

Better yet, if you own Photoshop or some other image-editing program, scan the image at the scanner's highest resolution setting, then use the image-editing program to sample it down to the desired size. Image-editing programs usually have more sophisticated math built into them than scanners do, so they produce a sharper, better-looking result than just letting the scanner do all the work.

If I were in your specific situation, using the scanner I have (an old Canon FS-4000) and the software I have (Photoshop CS2) I'd do the following:

-- Scan the negative at the scanner's full resolution of 4000 pixels per inch.

-- Open the resulting 4000 x 6000-pixel file in Photoshop.

-- Using the "Image>Image Size" dialog, make sure the "Resample Image" checkbox at the bottom is checked, then enter 1600 pixels as the desired width. Checking the "Resample Image" box tells Photoshop you want it to mathematically resample the entire image to reduce it down to 1600 pixels of width.

-- Resampling the image down will smooth out a lot of grain and scanner artifacts, but it also will soften the image a bit (because the mathematical process used isn't perfect.) So, judiciously apply the "Smart Sharpen" filter at a low setting; this will restore most of the crispness of the image.

-- Save the file from Photoshop in whatever format the publication has specified, making sure you use the highest quality setting if applicable.


There are people who follow more exotic procedures or use more esoteric software, but this is all you need to do to prepare most images for publication (and I'm speaking as someone who's in the publication business.)

 

[jlw]

Thanks Brett.....I was planning on rescanning. I did try hitting "print" last night, and it asked me the size in inches...I hit 8" and the resulting file was 4.53MB and was HUGE, when I emailed it it was so big you could only see a 1/4 of the shot on your screen. Even when I opened the file the width was 12" or so on my screen.

You can't expect for all of a publication-quality file to fit on your monitor unless the finished size is very small. Looking at my previous post, you know that the publication is asking you for a file that's 1600 pixels wide. Most computer monitors aren't nearly that wide -- nowadays a typical figure might be 1,024 x 768 pixels, and a lot of older PCs show only 800 x 600 pixels.

I do a lot of graphics work at home, so my iMac is set to display 1680 x 1050 pixels -- and even at that, I would just barely be able to view your 1600-pixel-wide image all at once.

 

[dadsm3]

Thanks so much guys, I was able to get her a sufficient quality file. The only way was to give her a scan at 200dpi and 8" wide, untouched by me in PS....just greyscale and send. Any sharpening at my end brought out too much grain as far as she was concerned.....she said they would do any tweaking along those lines themselves. Looking forward to seeing one of mine in print....and I have you guys and RFF to thank.
Choking....up...a...bit....talk amongst yourselves.
Cheers,
Mike