JPEGs (or .jpg) - everyone uses them, no one understands them. The name comes from the Joint Photographic Experts Group which came up with the standard for compression of photos. The compression methods is usually lossy compression (as opposed to lossless compression) which causes degradation of the photo. I know, every camera shoots jpgs and they look fine, but the lossy compression method is progressive and once gone can't be returned to its original state.
Good advice came from Suzanne Salvo, "when you download your photos from your camera, burn a cd of the files (never write on the cd with a sharpie) and file it away, take the photos on your computer and convert to psd files immediately".
I want to return to the statement that the method is progressive, what that really means is if you keep the file as a jpeg each time you open and save the file it recompresses it, causing more loss of data. So it may look fine when you start but can completely degrade over time. To the point it is no longer usable.
Print dpi - dots per inch. In the old days before quick printing, the measurement was in lpi or lines per inch and early versions of Photoshop allow you to set the lpi and the dpi was set for you. Now we all use the dpi, the question is what is enough? The trick is to balance a good output photo with a file that is easily managed. I used to have an equation that allowed you to take the output of the printer, ie 600 dpi and calculate the maximum dpi needed for your photo, but after all the calculations if you just divide by 2 you'll come really close. So if your output is at 600 dpi, the most you need is 300 dpi on your Photoshop image (at size of course).
I use a Xerox Docucolor 6060 color printer and it has beautiful output. I took a photo at 8 X 10 and set it at 200 dpi and printed - looked great, I then rescanned and printed it at 300 dpi, looked great. In fact it was hard to tell the difference without a loupe. The difference? The 200 dpi was 20 megs the 300 dpi was 45 megs - over twice the size with no gain in output. I think 200 dpi will work for most applications. BTW I also did the same on our HP 5500 inkjet poster printer, pretty much the same story - except you can take the dip down to 150 dpi with little change in the actual output.
My recommendation? Check with your local printer - see what they require and don't use jepgs!
Showing posts with label jpegs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jpegs. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
One of the greatest things to happen is the personal computer and the advent of desktop publishing. One of the worse things to happen is the personal computer and desktop publishing.
I will be the first to admit that my education was not in desktop publishing but I do have a graduate degree which requires you to learn how to learn. (That could be a whole 'nother blog). When I decided to work in desktop publishing my credentials included several years of editing newsletters and guidebooks. I have been using a computer since my son convinced me it was a necessity in the early 80s. In the early 90s I decided on a career change and found someone willing to take a chance. In return for that I attended seminars and read voraciously. It has been fun and a continuing learning experience.
Being a person who lists observing people as one of his hobbies, it has been great to see the change in people over the last 15 years in computer usage. It amazes me that we have college freshmen who don't know what it is like to grow up without a computer at home, and very probably have never used an encyclopedia except at school when their teacher made them. I went from typing papers because students didn't have a computer in their doom, or the computer lab was foreign whereas now I print projects in full color for a 101 class where the student has placed careful thought, photos and fully formatted text. Seeing that change has been fun.
But there is small pain in the growth process. We still have people who don't understand how many fonts there are in the world, much less how many version of Times (or TNR) that are out there, and how a font substitution can reformat an entire document. I really do wish I had a nickel for every time I heard: "but that's not how it looked on my computer."
It is a truism that with the onset of desktop publishing there was a blossoming of newsletters. We had company newsletters, insurance newsletters, family newsletters, I even remember getting a newsletter on newsletters, if there was a group of people there was a newsletter. It is a great communication device and helps get information to the group. Normally this was the responsibility of the secretary or the cousin that had a computer, and a lot of these newsletters were made in word or publisher. I will go into a rant about microsoft one of these days but not now. The focus today is fonts and photos.
There is a difference between fonts and typefaces, but in the digital age that line has been blurred. If you're talking to an old style printer you will hear the word typeface instead of font. For our purposes we'll use the term font to mean both. Fonts can make a newsletter readable. In fact fonts can make a newsletter graphically exciting and emphasize your salient points. But more than two fonts should be used only when you know what the result will be. Too many fonts can confuse a reader and put them off of your message. Instead of using a new font for each idea, use a single font family then apply a style (italics, bold) to emphasize your point. Remember if you remain consistent with your style the reader will learn how to quickly glance at your newsletter and get the important information without reading your entire newsletter. I know you have fretted over every word and you want the reader to look at and understand each word, but in today's time-crunched world yours isn't the only newsletter on their desk and if you have a point you want them to get it. If you don't have a point, why are you writing a newsletter?
Another area of problem is the use of "cute or unique" fonts. There are graphic designers whose whole focus is on creating new fonts and some are quite talented. You can find a font that you really love and it can be a great attention getter. But you use it in all caps and write a whole paragraph of a curly cue font which no one can read, or will want to. And while you can find some really cool fonts for free on the internet the possibility that your print provider has that specific font is almost nil. So either be sure to collect for output, or save as a pdf. And if you're on a windows box remember that microsoft and adobe don't really like each other and the defaults in microsoft will need to changed. You want to include the fonts and you want a print quality output.
My original intention was to type this as comment on desktop publishing with the emphasis on fonts and jpegs but I seemed to have more to say about fonts than I originally thought. I will continue as a series on dtp with the next installment on the use of jpegs. I will begin that installment as soon as possible. This blogging takes more time than you think.
ch
I will be the first to admit that my education was not in desktop publishing but I do have a graduate degree which requires you to learn how to learn. (That could be a whole 'nother blog). When I decided to work in desktop publishing my credentials included several years of editing newsletters and guidebooks. I have been using a computer since my son convinced me it was a necessity in the early 80s. In the early 90s I decided on a career change and found someone willing to take a chance. In return for that I attended seminars and read voraciously. It has been fun and a continuing learning experience.
Being a person who lists observing people as one of his hobbies, it has been great to see the change in people over the last 15 years in computer usage. It amazes me that we have college freshmen who don't know what it is like to grow up without a computer at home, and very probably have never used an encyclopedia except at school when their teacher made them. I went from typing papers because students didn't have a computer in their doom, or the computer lab was foreign whereas now I print projects in full color for a 101 class where the student has placed careful thought, photos and fully formatted text. Seeing that change has been fun.
But there is small pain in the growth process. We still have people who don't understand how many fonts there are in the world, much less how many version of Times (or TNR) that are out there, and how a font substitution can reformat an entire document. I really do wish I had a nickel for every time I heard: "but that's not how it looked on my computer."
It is a truism that with the onset of desktop publishing there was a blossoming of newsletters. We had company newsletters, insurance newsletters, family newsletters, I even remember getting a newsletter on newsletters, if there was a group of people there was a newsletter. It is a great communication device and helps get information to the group. Normally this was the responsibility of the secretary or the cousin that had a computer, and a lot of these newsletters were made in word or publisher. I will go into a rant about microsoft one of these days but not now. The focus today is fonts and photos.
There is a difference between fonts and typefaces, but in the digital age that line has been blurred. If you're talking to an old style printer you will hear the word typeface instead of font. For our purposes we'll use the term font to mean both. Fonts can make a newsletter readable. In fact fonts can make a newsletter graphically exciting and emphasize your salient points. But more than two fonts should be used only when you know what the result will be. Too many fonts can confuse a reader and put them off of your message. Instead of using a new font for each idea, use a single font family then apply a style (italics, bold) to emphasize your point. Remember if you remain consistent with your style the reader will learn how to quickly glance at your newsletter and get the important information without reading your entire newsletter. I know you have fretted over every word and you want the reader to look at and understand each word, but in today's time-crunched world yours isn't the only newsletter on their desk and if you have a point you want them to get it. If you don't have a point, why are you writing a newsletter?
Another area of problem is the use of "cute or unique" fonts. There are graphic designers whose whole focus is on creating new fonts and some are quite talented. You can find a font that you really love and it can be a great attention getter. But you use it in all caps and write a whole paragraph of a curly cue font which no one can read, or will want to. And while you can find some really cool fonts for free on the internet the possibility that your print provider has that specific font is almost nil. So either be sure to collect for output, or save as a pdf. And if you're on a windows box remember that microsoft and adobe don't really like each other and the defaults in microsoft will need to changed. You want to include the fonts and you want a print quality output.
My original intention was to type this as comment on desktop publishing with the emphasis on fonts and jpegs but I seemed to have more to say about fonts than I originally thought. I will continue as a series on dtp with the next installment on the use of jpegs. I will begin that installment as soon as possible. This blogging takes more time than you think.
ch
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