Basic Photography Guide For Newbies

Digital photography at its best

We have arrived at an era when digital media is more commonplace. It has

become more cost effective, the results are pleasing, and the ease of sharing,
viewing and archiving make it convenient for many users. History has shown
that multimedia has gone through a continual evolution in regard to the use of
formats and storage media. Many of us may confront issues regarding how we
want to deal with photography. Should we consider the use of our own digital
camera? The answer will depend on your views about how such a change would
impact your life. Surely the consideration of owning a digital camera represents
a collection of new challenges. This article will present an overview of some of
the issues that are involved.

What is required?
The camera itself represents a substantial outlay of money, however it is not the
only outlay that will be required. Fortunately, digital cameras are cost
competitive with film cameras that may be used for most general purposes. The
collection of features in a given camera will affect its price. A simple way of
comparing digital cameras is by the number of Megapixels that show in an image
frame. If you choose a one Megapixel camera, you will find that full-frame
images will be slightly larger than the viewing area of a monitor screen that is set
for a resolution (or screen area) of 800 X 600 pixels.

Another major determinant of adaptability is the zoom capability. The zoom

range that is most significant to the user is the range of “optical zoom.” Digital
zoom range is generally of less significance, as the user can deal with these
settings while using an image modifying program after the image file is in the
computer. Other features that may be of importance is whether you have
viewing capability on the camera for seeing the image in a digital screen viewer
before taking a picture as well as a digital screen that can show a selected image
frame after the picture is taken. Provision for taking flash pictures may be an
important consideration. Also, it is beneficial to have a display screen that shows
how many pictures can be taken before the flash card is full.

Note that the flash card can be removed from the camera and replaced with a
spare flash card, just as you would do with film cartridges. One difference is that
the flash card is not light sensitive and its location in the camera is not in the light
path that is used for taking pictures, so no precautions are needed before
opening the slot where the flash card is installed. Closing the slot involves a
mechanism that slides the card into position and makes contact to the “pads.”
Opening the slot works in the opposite fashion and ejects the card just far
enough that it can be grasped with fingers for removal.

You will find that savings will accrue when you don’t have to pay for film or
standard film photo processing.
Camera accessories that are often selected at the time of purchase can include
things like a spare “flash (memory) card,” batteries, battery charger, carrying
case, etc. Recognize that your total outlay will be dependent on whether a given
accessory is included in the camera’s price. A flash card has a thin substrate
that contains a bunch of memory elements. It is slightly more than an inch on
each side, and less than an eighth of an inch thick. It has a few plated copper
“pads” on the substrate that provide connection points for applying power to it
and for transferring signal data in and out of it. It is convenient to make these
accessory selections at this time, as you are already at the location where they
have the items and know which ones will fit your camera. However, accessories
can be bought at any time from a reputable camera store.

You must consider the means for copying image frames from the flash card in
the camera. If you copy these files to your own computer, there should be
enough accessories and software bundled with the camera to provide for these
needs.

The most common type of interfacing connection between camera and computer
is a USB cable that mates with the camera at one end and with the computer at
the other end. If your computer does not have a USB port available, perhaps the
easiest way to add one or two of them is to use a USB card that gets installed in
a PCI slot within your computer. This requires that your computer have and
available PCI slot. If your operating system is Windows 98 or newer, chances
are that Windows will “see” the new hardware and install the required driver for it
when the computer boots after the USB card is installed.

The software for transferring image frames from the camera’s flash card to your
computer must be installed and the user must learn how to operate it.
There are so-called flash card readers which can be used to transfer data in or
out of a flash card. The reader has the ability to accept dowloads from the flash
card by removing it from a camera and placing it in the card reader. A reader will
often serve as a writer if you have need for that, and a media device that can
“read” from a flash card.

Another form of media used with some digital cameras is a floppy disk that
inserts into the camera and is removed with images in JPG format. If this is the
media used in a one Mpixel camera, you could get five shots on one disk, and
may find that an indicator of how many remaining frames may be taken on a
partially filled disk may not be important. This represents a very easy way to
transfer image data to a computer.

Minimum system requirements for all new devices and software must be
considered if everything is to work properly.

Other means of transferring image frames exist. To do so in conjunction with

your computer, an external device can be purchased that will accept the flash
card and will provide the ability to gather and retain the image files that can be
copied to any available computer.

Another option is to take the flash card to a photo processor and have them
provide the image files on a disk. Of course, this involves processing cost, but
may not be as expensive as you expect.

Recent trends in battery selection for devices like digital cameras favor the NiMH,
or Nickel-Metal Hydride type. They are more tolerant to many kinds discharge-
recharge cycles, and will last for more recharge cycles than the Nickel-Cadmium
types. They may give better service if a special charger is used with them.
Some digital cameras use a custom battery and others use a few cells of
standard size, like AA or AAA. Some users prefer to have two sets of them that
are never mixed with members from the other set. One caution – don’t expect
them to retain their charge as long as Alkaline or NiCad batteries. You may
prefer that the batteries be of the standard AA or AAA configuration for a few
reasons, one of which is that they are less expensive when buying as a spare or
as a replacement than a custom battery. Also, you may be able to put in
standard alkaline cells in an emergency.

Two forms of batery chargers are available, one for restoring charge when the
batter(y) (ies) (is) (are) out of the camera, and one for replenishing charge when
the batteries are in the camera, as the drain can be substantial when using the
LCD viewer or when downloading pictures.

Taking pictures with a digital camera

Some differences in technique are required, as the digital image data is captured
in a manner that is different from a film camera. Most digital cameras have a
shutter that will make settings of focus and contrast when the shutter button is
half-way down, and this process may add a delay to the time before the shutter
operates.

When looking through a viewer, it is desirable to have a digital screen in the

eyepiece viewer. One reason this is important is to ensure that certain types of
scenes will retain the color elements correctly. A user should be aware that
many digital cameras can do poorly with scenes such as sunrises if they point
the camera at the foreground slightly below the horizon and in line with the sun
before pressing the shutter. This may result in an image that shows none of the
color or brightness of the sky. However, if you use the shutter button to pre-
focus (and pre-contrast) on the sky, and hold the shutter button half-way down as
your re-direct the camera toward the preferred framing direction, you will see if
the colorful features in the sky will be retained in the picture. If you have a 2
Mpixel or 4 Mpixel camera, you don’t need to point the camera in the preferred
framing direction, as you can obtain a reasonably wide-angle result and
unnecessary piture content can be removed later by cropping.

Generally speaking, a digital camera will use a shutter speed that is faster than a
film camera, which relieves the user from having to steady the digital camera as
much to avoid blurred pictures. The implications are that telephoto work can be
done with a digital camera without a tripod if the user is steady, the camera has
considerable zoom capability, and the scene is well lit. This is an interesting
result that can be obtained without an expensive and heavy detachable lens,
which would be required on a film camera. Also, many digital cameras have an
autoexposure feature that tends to make a setting of fast shutter and fast f-stop.
Thus, an amateur photographer can do a respectable job with telephoto
photography, where the narrow-angle view may be the only manual adjustment
needed for point-and-shoot pictures. Because the fast shutter speed makes the
camera more tolerant of slight motion while taking a picture, some have come to
regard this effect as a virtual “stabilizer.” In more expensive cameras, many will
have a feature called “image blur reduction.” This is especially useful when
taking telephoto pictures. Read the instruction manual for the camera to set up
this feature. It may require that you press the shutter button halfway and hold it
for a second or longer for this feature to become operational prior to operating
the shutter.

Some of the better digital cameras do can an excellent job of taking close-ups, as
their focus range may include four inches to infinity.

With the digital viewer on the back of the camera, you can have some assurance
that a satisfactory photo has been obtained. However, it has limited resolution
and limited ability to show a good display in sunlight. You can delete images
from the flash card that you don’t want and free up memory for additional frames
to be shot on the same flash card.
For most purposes, a user will be satisfied with images in the JPG format. With a
2 Mpixel camera, each frame will require about 0.5 MB of file space. Thus a 32
MB flash card will serve to retain up to 64 image frames.

Retouching a picture

Retouching can be considered the act of blending in those colors that make a
seamless presentation. It is often used to correct for blemishes on a person’s
skin, or the “red-eye” effect that can occur with flash photography. It is also a
restorative process for photos or other source artwork that has some areas that
have been compromised by handling or scratching, etc. The retoucher will use
their judgment to restore the colors to segments of the picture that tend to
reconstitute the image as it was before being damaged.

Two application programs that are useful in retouching will be discussed, MS

Paint and JASC's Paint Shop Pro.

Because the specific technique useful for a given project will call upon a series of
complex and arcane steps, only an overview of the capabilities of these two
applications will be discussed. The user is encouraged to become familiar with
the basics of the program you intend to use – to experiment with some of the
steps relevant to a chosen retouching technique – to call on the “Help” files to
obtain guidance on how to use the features, etc.

The two applications have some tools that are similar, and the principles of
operation have commonality. The “eyedropper” tool is used to sample color from
the source artwork or from a color palette. There are a variety of application tools
for applying this color to the areas you choose. You can create a custom palette
of colors, or you can “measure” the color that has been sampled by using
“custom colors.” The measure of a color is defined by its saturation, intensity, and
hue. In regard to the colors that appear on your screen, they are defined by a
“triad” of the colors red, green, and blue (RGB), with the intensity of each defined
by an eight-bit number. The decimal value of this number ranges from zero for
black, or absence of intensity to 255 for the maximum intensity of that basic RGB
color. Note that a specific color includes an intensity value for each of the colors
red, green, and blue.

Oftentimes, there will be an equivalent of the decimal value stated in some other
way, perhaps as a two-character hexadecimal number or as a character symbol
that is part of a defined character group that has a corresponding number
between 0 and 255, as in an ASCII (American Society for Character Information
Interchange) code. Regarding hexadecimal numbers in relation to decimal
numbers, F in hexadecimal corresponds to 15 in decimal and FF corresponds to
255. Hexadecimal is a base-16 counting system, and decimal is a base-10
counting system. Hexadecimal has features that make it convenient to use with
computer systems and with characterizing intensity levels of the RGB color triad.
Either application can be used to insert chosen colors into areas that need
retouching. MS Paint allows you to place discrete colors within any pixel. It allows
you to sample the color existing within a given pixel and apply that color over one
or more pixels in patterns that are governed by the application tool. It also allows
you to sample a rectangular patch of pixels, over which the colors may vary, and
replicate that patch wherever you wish.

Paint Shop Pro has application tools that allow you to sample a color and apply it
in a manner in which the density of the applied color is greatest at the point of
application and diminishes as you get farther from the point of application. In
other words, the application tool can be much like an airbrush, with the greatest
density under the spray nozzle, and an overspray that can be adjusted by
settings. Paint Shop Pro also has a layering feature that lets you determine the
relative opacity of either layer – that is, you can make a custom layer with a
pattern of applied colors that have a tendency to correct the source artwork, and
determine later how much influence this layer should have in the evolution of the
final image. In general, the custom layer overlays the source artwork in the
temporary image seen by the program. You can manipulate the pattern of color
and it’s density, as well as control the transparency of this layer so you can
obtain the desired result. When satisfied with the result, save the temporary
image to a permanent image file.

Re-working an image file

In addition to the basic modifications that may be made to an image file, some
advanced modifications may be cosidered.
The two enhancement techniques to be discussed here involve modifying the
brightness of certain objects, or modifying the brightness over certain regions of
the image. These modifications are desirable more than one would expect, and
can overcome shortcomings of the original image.

First is a modification which is often desired to make facial tones match with a
viewer’s expectations in relation to lighter background objects elsewhere in the
image. The image may not have captured a good level of facial brightness, either
being too light or too dark.

Since facial tones are often a highlight of an image, they should be represented
by appropriate brightness levels. Fortunately, we have at our disposal a means
for modifying the gradation of shades from light to dark. Besides the ususal
controls for brightness and contrast, which apply factors which are proportional to
the level of brightness for everycodoed picture element (or pixel), we can also
apply a non-linear (gamma) factor. This alters the resultant gradations from light
to dark so the steps will be either larger or smaller as you depart from white to
darker shades, and eventually make up for these modified step sizes by the time
you approach the darkest shades.

Thus, if your source image has a person wearing a white shirt, their face would
be expected to show a shade which is normal for that person’s complexion,
neither too light nor too dark. The gamma-factor adjustment gives the user a
means to compensate for these effects.

A gamma-factor correction is available in an excellent freeware image application

called Irfan View. Irfan View also has means for adjusting the levels of Red
Green and Blue, as well as Brightness and Contrast. It is also good for
converting images into other formats.

The second modification is desired when uneven lighting was used when taking
a picture. This commonly occurs when a flash picture reveals objects in the
background that aren’t illuminated well. In the photo studio, a person who
operates an enlarger can use a technique which has been called “dodging,” or
“burning.” The process is the same, and it depends on the perceived goal of
bring down the brightness of given region, or bringing up the brightness of a
(complementary) region. It consists of noting where the photo paper will receive
too much light or too little light to balance the resultant image, and waving an
obect across the projected beam to reduce the “hot”spots in a desired pattern.

Fortunately, there are imaging applications that have developed a “layering”

technique that in essence, overlays two layers, with the transparency/opacity of
the upper layer determining how it alters the net result. This can be used in a
manner similar to that used in a photo darkroom to obtain the desired result.

An application program must be identified which provides the ability to select a

“transparency” for the upper layer that matches the required need. This
transparncy must have an opacity pattern that complements the needs of
(compensates for the uineneven bightness of) the source image, so that the
result will balance the brightness level over the entire image. Also, the user must
have the latitude to select the range of opacity from the desired clearest to the
desired densest (of the top transparency layer) for the image being modified.

An application that can do these things and do them well is Photo Page made by
Serif. This is a Publisher-type of application, and can be obtained a modest cost.
It operates much like other publisher programs, but should not be depended on
to:

Do a quality job in converting a layout to an standard image format

Make a satisfactory conversion from the layout to an HTML format.

A user can take the steps of doing a screen capture of a desired layout which
has the brightness modifications obtained by this layering technique by using
ALT + PRNT SCRN and pasting the result into MS Paint, and proceeding from
there with a quality image.

It is left as an exercise for the user to determine how to use the software to
modify a given image.

Each pixel has a “color”

Note that a digital image has a regular grid of picture elements (pixels) arrayed in
columns and rows within a rectangular boundary. Each pixel has an associated
color. The RGB model is commonly used to represent the intensity of each of the
hues (or colors) red, green, and blue. In the RGB model, black and white are
represented as the absence of intensity of R, G, and B, while white is
represented by the greatest intensity of R, G, and B.

The BMP file format is somewhat of a “gold standard” of representing an image

in the most basic manner, as no “gimmicks” are used in the coding which
represents the colors of each pixel. It is a format which can serve as a starting
point for deriving images of other file formats which may involve “compression,” a
means for shrinking the required file size needed to present a good picture.

Often, 256 equal steps between no intensity and maximum intensity provide a
fineness of intensity levels of each hue that is satisfactory for most work. In
decimal (base 10) numbers, this represents 0 through 255. There are
hexadecimal numbers (base 16) that correspond to each of the decimal values 0
through 255, and they are often used instead of decimal numbers to represent
these intensities.

Hexadecimal representations are a natural outgrowth of working with binary

(base 2) numbers, as they convey all necessary data elements that represent
binary numerals 0 to 15, and do so in the most efficient way.

Here’s an example:

Take the decimal number 15.

In base 10, the numeral 1 and 5, when arranged as they are shown represent
1x101 + 5x100

In base 2, it is represented as 1x23 + 1x22 + 1x21 +1x20 OR 1111. Note that if

the ordered sequence of these four representations of ON corresponds to four
specific locations within the computer where the rightmost (least significant
numeral) is defined as either 0 or 1, the numeral to its left as a 0 or a 2, next as a
0 or a 4, and the next as a 0 or an 8, we see that it takes exactly 4 bits of code to
identify any decimal number between 0 and 16.
In base 16, the letter (alphameric symbol) f is defined as decimal 15, and
hexadecimal values for 10 through 15 are assigned the letters a through f,
respectively.

Because a computer handles binary information terms (bits) as the means of

defining the state OFF=0, or ON=1 of any semiconductor or memory node, one
can see that the binary (base 2) system is elemental and very efficient.

When representing any decimal value between 0 and 255, we can see that it
takes only two hexadecimal symbols, while it would take exactly 8 bits, or a string
of eight zeros or ones if represented as a binary (base 2) number.

Thus we find that it is convenient, conceptually as well as in digital coding, to

represent any of the intensity levels by just two symbols, recognizing that these
symbols are defined on the base 16 counting system.

It has become a standard practice to define a group of 8 bits as a Byte. It has

become a common practice to use 256 gradations of intensity to give a good
representation of the detail necessary for obtaining a good picture. Note that it
takes 8 bits, or one byte, to represent each of the 256 intensity levels. In an RGB
color system having 256 intensity levels, every color representation involves an
8-bit binary number (or a one byte number). Since each pixel requires an 8-bit
number for each of the three R, G, and B colors, it is said to be a 24-bit color
system. Although the coding of intensity of each of the three colors of each pixel
can be measured in quantitative terms by the number of bits OR the number of
Bytes which are involved, bits are most often used in reference to the definition of
color of individual pixels, while Bytes are most often used as a measure of the
data required for the whole image.

For example, a color photo which can be copied into the C:\Windows folder to
serve as a “background” OR “wallpaper” must be introduced into that folder in
BMP format if using a Windows 9x operating system. If such an image file is
already of the size which will fill an 800 x 600 pixel screen without stretching, we
can calculate how big that file must be if it has 24-bit color coding.

There are 480,000 pixels and 1,440,000 Bytes. This number is close to the
maximum file size which may be copied onto a floppy disk. Let’s see if it will fit.

Remember that one KiloByte is 1,024 (210) Bytes, not 1,000 (103) Bytes. This
comparison recognizes that there is a different representation of the actual
number of Bytes which are involved, and that there is a factor of 2.4% to account
for when comparing the numeric values assigned to that file size if stated in
Bytes or in KiloBytes. A bigger discrepancy is involved when numeric values are
used to represent a file size in MegaBytes vs. Bytes.

For the case shown above, divide 1.44 x 106 Bytes by 1.024 twice to get
approximately 1.37 MB, which will fit on a floppy disk.

Image viewing programs

An interesting image viewer

A user may want to try Picture Viewer Max. 3.0. It is a $30 shareware that needs
to be registered before you get the Help files. A user can try it as demo ware and
decline to register it if they don’t need the help files.

Interesting features are that it resembles Windows Explorer, showing the location
of folders on each drive, and showing only the image files in those folders or
drives.

Showing only the image files and opening them with a double-click may be a
convenience you are looking for. It will open a wide range of file extensions and
has the ability to add text to an image.

It will display images no bigger than the full screen size of your monitor, or
typically 800 X 600 pixels.

An interesting home photo album program

Presto! Photo Album provides a few features beyond those normally offered in
this type of software. It has been offered as software bundled with scanner
drivers.

It is used primarily for displaying photo collections on your own computer. It

provides a few different arrangements of page sizes and spine locations – thus a
user can select whether the pages are wider than they are tall, and whether the
pages will turn sideways or turn up. Legends or captions can be added to
accompany each photo.

Interesting shared photo album applications

A user may want to be aware of Photo Parade, an image file type and a set of
two applications which either assembles the file type or views the file type. This
software is offered by Callisto Corporation, a sub-group of Adobe. The album
Player is a free download at:
http://www.photoparade.com/playerRegister.asp?os=win , while the album Maker
is $30 demo ware. The demo. version sets a limit on the number of photos which
can be assembled in an album.

It has a few advantages for some purposes. It is easy to make an album of a

small collection of photos, and to easily add a brief legend to each photo. The
assembled album is sent as a single PhP file, containing the embedded image
files. The recipient must have an free installed PhotoParade Player to open it.
The pages cycle automatically, and the legend appears during the mid-period of
the appearance of a page and overlays a part of the image. The image
automatically stretches to fit the recipient’s screen. An accompanying
background music is available, which plays during the presentation.
Some users will already have the Photo Parade Player installed as a
consequence of having installed recent versions of Adobe Photo Deluxe, which is
often bundled with some scanners, cameras, or printers. An occasional web
page will have a PhP file available to be viewed.

--------------

Another variant of this type of software is Scan Show, a demo ware provided by
Kevin Solway of Australia at his web site:
http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/scanshow.html. This demo ware is also $30 to
register, which allows you to assemble more than 5 photos into an album file. He
suggests that you send the viewer application to the recipient so they can install
it and view albums made with his system.

You can add captions and sound – the sound may associate either with
individual images or with the entire album.

Scan Show is used to create and show presentations of your collection of

images, either those that you have SCANNED (e.g., family photos), or those
obtained from other sources. You can give each image descriptive text and you
can specify a sound file to play. You can give the presentation a table of contents
(main menu). Presentations can be made to play automatically or manually.
Examples of uses of this program include: displaying scans of family
photographs, presenting scanned pages of a book, and business presentations.
The executable program for viewing the album should be incorporated with a
presentation. Some instructions for the user are required. Photos may be added
to a presentation.

Slides and Sounds Plus can be used to make a presentation and to supply the
presentation in the form of an executable program. One of it’s virtues is that once
the recipient initiates the executable program, the presentation begins – no
further instruction is needed. If an autostart feature is provided on a CD, it
becomes an automatic display album. Photos can’t be added to the executable
program.

Flip Album may be the first program of this type. The recent $50 standard version
provides features for incorporating MP3 music files, videos, and a host of other
goodies. A presentation can be viewed with the use of the free Flip Viewer.

3D Photo Album is a $40 program rated favorably by Bob Schwabach in his

syndicated column on June 24, 2002. He preferred it over the $150 Flip Album
Professional.

---------------

Other album applications are available that may provide features you prefer. In
some cases, you may be able to place the viewing application program in
installed from on a CD so a user will not have to install it on their hard drive.
---------------

ACDSee has a slideshow capability – no details on it are availble to this author.

Image Viewers/Modifiers

Irfan View, which sets up nicely to provide a slide show, in which each “page”
consists of the image files in a chosen folder. Simply open a file, click on View in
the toolbar amd click on “Start/Stop automatic viewing” in the dropdown menu.
Go to the download site at www.irfanview.com.

It also has some custom choices when printing a selected file, in that you can re-
size the image, position it prior to printing it on a page, do a page preview to
verify that it is what you want, then call for it to print, without having header or
footer data printed, which will occur when you print from a web browser.

You can paste an image file into Irfan View from the contents of a clipboard.

You can use Irfan View as the image modifying/image converting software that
accesses your scanner with the File|Acquire command. Depending on the
scanner software, it may automatically return the scanned temporary file to Irfan
View, or you may find that the scanner software will provide a command in the
menu that drops down from it’s “View” tool that lets you return the image to Irfan
View.

It has a handy zoom feature that produces a 10 percent change of zoom value
each time the zoom in or zoom out tool is clicked. It has a few custom settings in
the View menu for ensuring that an image will not exceed the viewing area of the
screen (called “Fit image to window”) or ensuring that the image will appear at full
size (called “Do not fit anything”).

The Thumbnails feature allows you to present a gallery of all the image files in a
given folder. After opening Irfan View, click on Edit, then on thumbnails. A panel
will opn at the right side of the screen allowing you to browse for the desired
folder. When you select a folder, a single column of thumbnail images will load. If
you have dozens of image files in this folder, you can maximize the screen and
see a matrix of thumbnail images, arranged in alphabetical order. An image
becomes full size by clicking on the thumbnail.

Some users have found that Irfan View is an ideal application for viewing movie
“trailers.” Others have found that it is a handy application for playing some sound
files. The plug-ins needed to open video or sound files, as well as a very wide
selection of image formats requires that the free plug-ins be downloaded and
installed from the Irfan View site.

Irfan View is fully functional without the need to install files into the Windows
folder. As a stand-alone application, it can be used as a means of viewing files
on a CD for users that don’t have Irfan View installed on their computer. This is
possible if the installed files for Irfan View are copied onto the same CD as the
file you wish to view. This is the same approach used by the Scan Show software
mentioned earlier.

Adobe PhotoShop Elements – A core version of the the more complete

Photoshop, it can be purchased for about $50 (with rebate). It is suitable for
modifying images and for adding text. Some have found it useful for making
custom greeting cards that incorporate their own photos. It has templates for
labels and envelopes.

It can make up a web-ready collection of thumbnail images and larger images

that fit the width of a screen that will download quickly. Clicking on a selected
thumbnail provides a larger view of the image.

JASC Paint Shop Pro 7 – Has a wide collection of powerful tools for enhancing
images. It can be used to make adjustments to the histogram of the image, which
help optimize a preferred balance of brightness, contrast, and gamma factor. It
can be used to reinforce desired flesh tones. It can “Clarify” an image, which has
the effect of adding a depth of facial expression by enhancing contrast. It can
selectively add noise or a “blur” which can offset some kinds of granular
appearences, such as Moiré effect. It can reduce the granularity of added “noise”
in an enhanced image by an “edge smoothing effect.” It has also has an
“Animation Shop” feaure that allows you to create or edit animated GIF image
sets.
JASC Paint Shop Pro 5 – Like Paint Shop Pro 7, it has a handy feature for
retouching images. Many scanned images will have blemishes due to particles of
the emulsion surface that are removed from a print due to repeated handling. A
“Clone brush” feature provides the ability to sample a selected size and shape of
area from an image and place in an area where it is needed to correct for a
blemish. The procedure is simple, once the size, shape, and character of the
smaple is selected, you place the mouse pointer in an area of the image
containing a oreferred color or color pattern to apply to an area having a blemish.
A right-click samples from that area, and a left-click deposits that pattern at a
location chosen by re-positioning the mouse pointer.

It provides a means for independent selection of gamma factor for each of the
colors red, green , and blue. This comes in handy when scanning an old color
photo that has significant color imbalance.

Adobe Photo Deluxe – This software is often bundled with a multimedia device
like a scanner or printer. It provides reasonable resources to do enhancements
and to adjust image size and resolution. The earliest versions were often
unwlcome for their autonomous selection of itself as the application to associate
with all common file formats. The most recent versions are not easy to learn
some of the simple procedural processes due to a confusing human interface of
menu items and their placement, even for users that are familiar with the menu
layouts of earlier versions.
Broderbund PrintShop – Similar to PhotoShop, this software can be purchased
for about $30.

Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart – This software is most often used to create and

view albums, or to print photos, on the user’s own computer. A useful feature is
the templates available for placing photos on page layouts for use in an album.
Some of the templates provide a blank space below the photos for a caption.

A 10-page user’s guide in PDF format is available at that site. The PhotoSmart
application software is available in the NWA-PCUG library.

Microsoft Image Preview- This software is resident on your hard drive of you
have certain newer versions of Windows. It is primarily a viewer, and you can
rotate the image and size it by either of two criteria before printing. Some users
prefer it to open only images of JPE format.

Microsoft PowerPoint – A full-featured and expensive presentation software

application, part of the MS Office family. It’s typical use is as a multi-media slide
show, with considerable flexibility in the way a presentation is organized.

PowerPoint gives you all that you need to create presentations that have visual
impact. Illustrate your ideas with impressive new Microsoft OfficeArt text and
drawing effects. Bring your data to life with new types of charts and easier-to-use
charting tools. You can even animate your work to build excitement, point by
point! Plus, you can create dynamic presentations easily with new, improved
multimedia features including sounds, movies, and pictures from the Clip Gallery.
Professionally deliver your message anywhere.

Sounds may be added, either to indivdual images or to a group of images. In the

latter case, the sound file must conform to a so-called “Redbook” specification for
WAV files (e.g., stereo, 16-bit samples, and 44.1 KHz sampling rate). This can
force the sound file to be large if it lasts for a few minutes. As a result, there is a
delay for such a PowerPoint file to be compiled.

If a sound file is to accompany an individual photo, it may be of nearly any

format.

Adobe Premiere 2 – This is a full-featured video editor. It can be used to make

slide shows with JPG (still) images by forming a video presentation and
subsequently burning a CD in a combination CD burner / DVD player. The
resultant item can be made in DVD format and as such, can be viewed in a
standard DVD player.

MS Paint – This application is usually installed as a default selection when

installing Windows. It is found in the C:\Windows\Start
Menu\Programs\Accessories folder. It will accept an image pasted from the
clipboard in the Edit menu. It provides some ability to do retouching, including
transplanting a susbtantial rectangular area from one portion of an image to
another portion.

It allows you to flip and/or rotate an image, resize it, crop it, expand the white
space on any edge of a rectangular image outline, and determine, to the pixel,
the dimensions of an image as you are making adjustments to the dimensions.
 Image file formats often used

File formats File size Viewed by Other

BMP big; no compression MS Paint or other accepts clipboard

copied image

JPG for internet and archiving web browser or other makes small
files of photos

GIF good for internet, tables, etc. web browser or other for images with
few shades

WMF good for clip art CDs choose a viewer previewing clip
art is a challenge

Functions often provided by a typical image viewer/converter

Allows the user to alter the format used for an image. Most viewers will provide
for modifying images.

------------------------

Modifications can include:

Cropping – enclosing the image within a smaller rectangular size by removing

margin content

Re-scaling – altering the scale factor of the image (i.e., stretching or shrinking)

Modifying the quality – brightness, contrast, gamma factor, color balance, altering
image content

In addition, it may provide features for convenient printing

Some image application programs that can do image

modification and/or format conversion

MS Paint, Visua, Irfan View, Adobe Photo Deluxe and Paint Shop Pro will be
mentioned here. This group has been cited because they are often found among
the software available to users.
MS Paint is installed with Windows. It can be used for cropping and re-sizing,
among others. Irfan View is a free download. Visua can be obtained from
private archives and is mainly an easy-to-operate viewer and format converter,
which can be used to crop and re-size. Irfan View is full-featured
viewer/modifier/converter. Adobe Photo Deluxe is often bundled with purchased
peripherals like printer, scanner, or camera. It is a full-featured
viewer/modifier/converter. More complete image application programs like
Adobe PhotoShop LE have occasionally been sent as free software with the
purchase of a peripheral. JASC’s Paint Shop Pro has many uses, and is suitable
for colorizing and some types of retouching. It also is an image format converter,
with the standard supported file types. It has a collection of tools that allow a
user to make many types of midifications to an image. In the Colors|Adjust tool,
there are six menu choices that provide dialog screens for making modifications.
Among them are a gamma tool adjustment where the gamma values selected for
red, green , and blue may be selected independently or together.

Altering the image content (in addition to the modifying steps shown
above) can include:

Smoothing edges, reducing granularity, reducing moiré patterns, adding special

effects, balancing brightness from one region of the image to another,
retouching, rotating the image by multiples of 90 degrees, rotating the image by a
selected amount, and flipping an image horzontally or vertically.

Printing features may include:

Print preview, an image scaling and positioning feature, rotating the image by 90
degrees, presence or absence of header, footer, pre-set margins, etc.

Viewing features may include:

Manual or automatic stepping through a collection of files, viewing a cluster of

files as thumbnails, reproducing sound files along with images

Applications to add displayability to images include:

Adding captions and/or legends, adding automatic presentation features to an

image collection

Displaying animated images:

Animated GIFs are a stepped sequence of GIF images which simulate motion.
Animated GIFs won’t work in all viewing software. They are commonly used on
web pages, as they will display properly in web browsing viewers.
 A brief discussion on images which are produced in scanner
formats
or in image converter formats.

When working with images in scanner software or in image converter software, it

is useful to remember that these are temporary image files with formats which:

Can modify the appearance of the image file that was imported

Can be used to make a print of the modified image

Usually won’t be useful in this current format to share – but will allow you to see
what you have

Must be saved or exported to a folder elsewhere on a drive which has a folder

assigned to accept it, if you wish to share it or archive it

Don’t alter the source image – that is, not unless you save or export the file and
assign the same file name and place it in the folder from which it came

-----------------------

Although such scanned temporary files may be retained by some scanner

software, they will only serve as your own archived images for later retrieval, and
then generally for short retention periods
 A discussion of image
resolution

Resolution is a term that expresses how well the graphic presentation shows the
spatial details in a picture. It is a measure of the fineness of the picture
elements.

Digital images consist of a large number of picture elements (pixels) in rows and
columns, each with a defined color. A pixel is one of many cells that form a
picture. An image may extend X pixels from left to right and Y pixels from top to
bottom, and contain X times Y pixels. A user has some latitude in how many
pixels are used to display a certain picture. For example, the monitor has a few
settings for selecting the full screen presentation. The most commonly used
resolution setting is 800 X 600 pixels. If every pixel is actually seen (including
the corners of the image), there will be 480,000 of them.

Modern digital cameras have frame sizes of 2 megapixels or 4 megapixels, so

the need to re-size and crop these images becomes important. If a full-frame
image is received as an attachment, the recipient may see only the upper-left
corner of the image unless they do some scrolling. Then they may like to make
the picture small enough so that it is more readily viewable without scrolling. Re-
sizing and cropping are topics discussed later.
Most viewing software applications (and printers) display the typical image
formats BMP, JPG, and GIF at 96 pixels per lineal inch. If a user wishes to
stretch a given image file for presentation or for printing, they will get no better
resolution by zooming in to make the image bigger.

If an image file is modified by stretching or shrinking the overall dimensions, the

software must find a means for making the picture information accommodate a
newly formed matrix of pixel sizes or pixel count. If the pixel count changes, the
picture must retain its basic character, yet the color assignments of the new set
of pixels is not the same as the original picture. The software must have
algorithms that account for these requirements. The ability of software to
accommodate these zoom requirements varies from one software package to
another.

A test of the quality of image-modifying software is to note if there is significant

degradation of an image if it undergoes a series of changes.

One of the more noticeable degradations due to zooming will appear in the
quality of the text. A particular font type and size will have specific pixel cells
blackened. If you depart from the resolution in which the text was acquired,
some software will have a tough time keeping the boundaries between black and
white organized so the stroke width and precise shape of the text characters are
maintained or simulated..

A zoom-type feature may be used in the MS Paint application by commanding

Image|Stretch/Skew. When the Stretch and Skew dialog box appears, you will
note that there are small highlighted windows opposite the words Horizontal and
Vertical in the upper (Stretch) panel which each say 100%. To shrink the picture
to half of the original image dimensions, you do so in two steps. First, click
(dropping a cursor) in the “Horizontal” (small) window, and replace the 100% with
50 %, and click on Okay. Then do the same for the 100% value in the “Vertical
(small) window, and click on Okay.

Scanner software generally has choices of scan resolution, as well as black and
white vs. color, and a further determination of gray scale or simply black OR
white coding when choosing black and white. The latter distinction is important
when choosing whether you need two levels (one bit) of gray (either black OR
white) or many levels (gray scale), which affords a more accurate rendition of the
source material.

Most often, you will find that the scanner software offers about five default
settings for making these selections, and the means for making custom settings
which depart from the default values.

A large picture will produce a large image file, and settings that provide more
picture details will make that file even bigger. The temporary image format used
in scanner software and in image conversion software has no compression (i.e.,
all picture information is defined within each presented pixel). Thus, the user
should note that it takes time for a slow computer to compile all the necessary
data to form and to reformat this image if an unusually large, detailed image is
being used. In fact, users should be aware that limitations of computer
processing speed may not be apparent until you use large media files like a large
color photos with high resolution.
A user should be judicious in the choice of the scanner settings to make an
image file having suitable spatial resolution and color resolution (the fineness of
allowed step changes in the color palette) so that the selected resources are
appropriate for the end result.

Another image format is available that provides for more than 96 dpi resolution.
Although the scanner software can accommodate resolutions that exceed 300
dpi, the user may wish to transfer that file to another computer which doesn’t
have the same scanner software. The format most often used for this purpose is
TIF or TIFF. The TIF format provides for resolutions of 300 dpi, or other values
which may be set when encoding the file. Also, it will encode either as
uncompressed or compressed (JPG and LZW are compression options).

The software application needed for creating a TIF file is (Kodak) Imaging, which
is automatically installed with modern versions of Windows. Like MS Paint,
Imaging will accept images from a clipboard, but you must define the spatial
resolution and the color depth unless you are willing to accept the default
settings. Imaging can be used for pictures of higher resolution than MS Paint, as
it supports spatial resolutions greater than 96 dpi.

A user can copy or export scanned high-resolution images to JPG , GIF, or BMP
formats, but the picture dimensions will increase to match the defined 96 dpi for
these formats. If images are exported into TIFF format in Imaging with a
resolution that matches that of the image exported from the scanner software,
the dimensions won’t change.
The JPG and GIF formats have become standards for use on the internet, as
they are able to reduce file sizes while preserving picture details. This is
accomplished with the use of sophisticated algorithms that make choices about
the picture elements (pixels) whose color definition don’t change from the one
which precedes it in the defined sequence of forming the pixels into the file. In
this sense, the algorithm “votes out” the data associated with certain pixels if
there is no change from its preceding neighbor. In the viewer software, its
algorithm has the ability to reformulate the original image in the absence of the
data for those pixels whose color data was voted out. Also, web browsers will
present files in JPG and GIF formats, while many web browsers may not present
some of the other formats.

JPG file creation depends on a “quality” selection, often made by the user, in
which the user makes a trade-off between the requirements for retaining image
quality, and the resultant file size. Thus, a user can make a file with less than
100% quality retention if a smaller file size is desired. A JPG file is most often
selected if the picture contains subtle shadings of color, and a small file size is
desired. A JPG quality factor of 70% is often acceptable, as it represents a good
trade-off between picture quality and file size. A GIF file is often chosen for
tables, figures, cartoons, clip art, etc., where few shades of color are present.
Choosing the GIF format for this kind of picture often results in a smaller file than
a JPG file would provide.

GIF is often used for the collection of small image insets which are placed on a
web page. If a GIF file of appreciable dimension is shown in the top half of a web
home page (so a visitor will see the image form on their screen), the visitor may
notice that this image forms in a way which may seem distracting, since the
picture elements form in cells much bigger than a single pixel, and these cells
become progressively smaller as the fully resolved image takes form. This effect
usually is not noted in GIF files of small dimension.

Screen image capture

You may find it convenient to capture the image content that is presented on your
monitor screen. It is an easy matter to “Copy” this image data on the virtual
“clipboard” which is provided by Windows. To copy this data to the clipboard,
simply press Alt + Pnrt Scrn (both keys at the same time). This will place data on
the clipboard just as the Copy feature does with highlighted data in text transfer
applications. The next step is to find a place to “Paste” this image data. This is
often done by opening MS Paint and commanding Edit|Paste, at which point the
image appears in the Paint application screen. Then you can perform some
steps on the image like cropping and saving the image. Note that a few other
image programs like Irfan View will also accept importing the image by the use of
the “Paste” command.

One of the unique features about MS Paint is it’s ability to accept a word file that
is on the clipboard. Thus, a user can “Copy” all or part of a page from MS Word
(which may contain images) and “Paste” it directly into MS Paint. This
information may be helpful for those who would find it difficult to capture as much
height from the document page as would otherwise be available by doing a
screen capture. This will be described in more detail below.
A user should be advised that if they want to preserve image quality, they should
prefer using screen capture over Copying from the Word application. In order to
screen capture of the entire height of the layout on a given page in the “Portrait”
orientation, they may have to use a “zoom” feature of their screen presentation.
The “zoom” feature mentioned here is that of using the “Desktop”|“Properties” to
reset the screen resolution up to 1280 X1024 pixels. This will usually provide
enough height for the screen to show all the text (about 10 inches), when
“View”|”Full Screen” presentation is used. This is desribed in more detail below.
Full Screen is a feature that remove the display of most of the toolbars at top
and/bottom that wouold otherwise limit sowing the entire layout height on the
screen. Also note that the zoom feature of Word should be set for 100% if you
want the image to be normal size. When you obtain image data by means of a
screen capture it can be pasted into Irfan View as well as MS Word. Generally, a
user will want to crop away extraneous border elements obtained from a screen
view capture.

Note also that MS Word has an exceptionally good Zoom capability that tends
NOT to compromise the presentation of text or images as you depart from the
original size.

When using the “Copy” feature in MS Word, there will be no need to crop away
margins, as the “Copy” feature does that automatically. The user whould also be
aware that the “Normal.dot” template in MS Word must be set at least as large as
demanded by the page layout – if not, some of the layout will be truncated.

Also, note the following: a greater amount of effective screen area for doing a
screen capture is provided by re-setting the screen display for a larger number of
pixels. This is done by going to the desktop, right-clicking on the background,
clicking on the Properties on the drop-down menu, clicking on Settings tab on the
pop-up screen, and moving the slider in the Screen area panel to the right.
When the desired pixel setting is obtained, click on Okay on the Settings screen,
then on Okay in the Display Properties dialog box, then click on Yes in the
Monitor setting dialog box. By doing this, the screen displays more copy, and
more data is contained on the clipboard after doing a screen capture, with little
loss of image detail. And you should be aware of the zoom setting of the file
displayed on the screen prior to the screen capture. In some cases, the zoom
value will default to a value less than 100%, as Word has some features for
ensuring that the width of displayed text will fit within the width of the displayable
area of the screen.

Some observations on the rectangular boundary around an image in MS Paint.

The size of the active screen prior to pasting image data is defined by a white
rectangle. It is preferable that this be smaller than the area of the image to be
pasted, as this area will expand to accommodate the size required when you say
it’s okay to paste it into Paint even if the area is too small. Next, it is best to
remove the defaulted dashed line that initially surrounds the pasted image. This
can be done by commanding SaveAs, and you can defer naming the file if you
choose. If the dashed lines aren’t removed, your image dimensions will become
proportioanlly smaller when you pull in the picture edges while cropping the
picture. Also, if you want to move out the image boundary, allowing a non-
cropped white margin, you can do that by dragging the little black dot outward.

A simpler method for placing a page of formatted text from an MS Word

application is available. The layout content will be placed on the clipboard by
highlighting the material, then Copying it to place it on the clipboard. Note that
up to one page of MS Word layout can be captured, but it must fall within the
boundary of the “template” defined in Normal.dot, a template file which resides in
C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates. This is the file that retains
information on the margin settings each time MS Word is opened and is ready to
accept the creation of a new document. The default margins can most easily be
reset in the Page Setup|Margins dialog box in Word by clicking on the Default
button and then clicking on Yes when the new margin settings have been
established.

To crop the image, you must first remove the dashed lines along the edge of the
image. This can be done by commanding a Save As, at which point you can pick
a folder and a file name for the image to be saved in. To crop, you must find the
small black dots along middle of the lower and right sides of the image. By
placing the mouse pointer on top of one of these dots until you see a double-
headed arrow, then you can drag in the edge of the picture until the desired
margin is established. To crop the other two sides, command an Image|
Flip/Rotate|Rotate by angle|180 degrees, which will invert the image. Then you
do the same steps to pull in the edges of the image which are now the lower and
right edges. When satisfied, invert the image again by doing Image|Flip/Rotate|
Rotate by angle|180 degrees, and command a Save on the modified image.

You may note that when the mouse pointer is within the boundary of the image,
two coordinate numbers appear near the lower right corner of the image
boundary. These numbers correspond to the X and Y coordinates at that point,
measured in pixels from the upper left corner of the image. The upper left pixel
has the coordinates 0,0. If you are bringing in the right or the lower boundary by
dragging on the tiny black dot at the mid-point of these boundaries, the
coordinate of that boundary will represent the number of lineal pixels retained in
that temporary image. Thus if you want to crop an image to a precise size, MS
Paint provides the tools to do so.

Notes on cropping

Means for cropping will be described for MS Paint, and later, for Irfan View, and
for Adobe image applications. To import a JPG file into MSPaint, click on “Edit”
in the menu bar, then on “Paste from” in the drop-down menu. In the “Paste
From” dialog box, select JPG for the data in the slot beside “Files of type.” Then
browse for the desired file by placing the folder containing the file in the “Look in”
slot. Find the file name, highlight it and it will appear in the “File name” slot. Then
click on the OK button.

You will be able to crop only the right and bottom edges of thte image in MS
Paint, but you can invert the image to crop the other two edges. Scroll the image
in MS Paint so that the lower right corner of the imag is in the lower fight corner
of the Paint screen. The look for the small black dots at the mid-point of either
edge and drag it inward to perform a temporary cropping step. If it has brought in
a proper amount, drag in the other black dot to perform another temporary
cropping step.

Then invert the image by clicking on “Image” in the menu bar, then on
“Flip/Rotate” in the drop-down menu. In the “Flip and Rotate” dialog box, select
“Rotate by angle” in the radio box, and on 180o in the nest radio button , and click
the OK button. With the image inverted, do the cropping steps as shown above.
Note that while you are dragging in the black dots, you will find some numbers in
the lower right corner of the Paint screen that will show you the image
dimensions in pixels. You may have a target size in mind like 800 X 600, and
MS Paint will let you achieve that size.

After cropping along these two sides, invert the image by doing the lfip and rotate
process described above. Then make sure you do a “Save As” on the upright
and cropped image. Fhis means you must give the file a name and a choose a
folder in which to place it. The file will have a BMP file extension

Then you may want to convert the cropped image to a JPG format. When doing
this, you may find that the image will appear dark and “washed out.” One way to
correct for this is to increase the brightness and the contrast of the image before
converting it back to the JPG image format. In Adobe programs and in Irfan
View, increase the brightness by about 12 points and the contrast by about 15
points.

To crop in Irfan View, take the mouse pointer and drag a rectangle around the
desired portion of the image and when satisfied that is a suitable crop, click on
“Edit,” then on “Crop.” Remember that the image you are seeing is a temporary
one and if you want to save it, you must take the steps to do so.

Cropping in Adobe programs follows a pattern of commands which are similar to

one another, but the specifics may depend on the program and the version. You
must file a selection called “Trim & Size.” In recent versions, you may start with
“Get & Fix photo,” then to “Rotate & Size,” which should show “Trim & Size” in a
drop-down menu. Click on Trim & size, and you will see a display with a heading
of “Trim” and a set of three tabs, with the left tab highlighted which says “Start
here.” Click on the next tab which says “Trim.” This will drop down a set of three
icons which have captions saying “Trim,” “OK,” and “Cancel.” In the Trim icon,
note that there is a dashed line that represents a cropping operation. Click within
that dashed line. Then go to the image that appears in the Adobe screen an
place the mouse cursor on the image. You will notice that the cursor is now a
double crosshair pattern. This can be used to drag a rectangular frame around
the image that you want to keep. You can make adjustments to the position of
this frame by dragging on the black squares at any corner or any edge of the
frame. When you are satisfied with the frame size and position, click on OK, and
the temporary image will be cropped. The image must them be saved.

Comments on performing a screen capture of a PDF file

These comments will address a special case of a file viewer that treats “zoom”
values in a different manner than most viewers. If you “Copy” a screen view of a
PDF file presented by Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, it is not likely to show up in
another viewer with an image size that you expect. Some background on this
comment follows.

The Acrobat Reader has an indicator of “zoom” value which affects the image
size presented on the screen. A user should also be aware that image file data
may not be extractable from a PDF file by any simple means other than by a
screen capture. Text data can be extracted by using the Text tool to enable the
pointer to highlight the (entire span of horizontal) text lines of interest.
Regarding the zoom value selected in Acrobat Reader, note that most users
have already underatken a 75% zoom of presentation on their screen by the
choice of 800 X 600 pixels on their monitor, rather than 640 X 480, the default
value. The implication of this is that most users will have to make a zoom setting
of 133% in their Acrobat Reader for the material to show at full size, and to Copy
at full size when doing a screen capture.

So, you ask, isn’t this a simple matter – and the answer is no. The normal way of
setting a zoom value is to click on the View tool of the application and click on a
menu value of zoom or to enter a custom number for a zoom value if the menu
doesn’t offer the value you want. Well, that’s not the way it works in Acrobat
Reader.

However, there are other features that can be used to obtain the desired custom
zoom number. To achieve a zoom value of 133% takes a few steps that seem
prohibitively difficult, but it can be done. A user may be better served by realizing
that if their objective is to capture the detail of an image available in a PDF file,
they may wish to do a screen capture at an Acrobat Reader zoom value near
133%, and then perform a re-sizing step in an image modifying program.

If the desired image nearly fills an 8 ½ X 11 sheet of paper, you may find it
advantageous to temporarily re-set your monitor zoom to a value as high as 1280
X 1024, so you acquire as many pixels as needed to give a good rendition of the
picture.
Further details on how to proceed with the requisite steps to Copy an image from
a screen capture of a PDF in Acrobat Reader when the page is displayed at
133% zoom are beyond the scope of this discussion. Let us just say that it
imvolves temporary re-sizing of the monitor pixel setting, selecting the Navigation
Pane in Acrobat Reader, selecting the Fit Width display of the page, and
dragging the partition between the Navigation Pane and the displayed page to
the right until a selected zoom size of 150% becomes 133%

Previewing a collection of images in a folder by using temporary

thumbnail images

You may wish to look at a collection of image files in a given folder to find what
you are looking for. This can be a slow process if you open each file at full size
and do the required point and click steps to display each image. Examples of
large groups of image files may be archived photos from personal sources, or a
collection of clip art images (often there are hundreds to thousands of images in
a single folder).

There are some application programs that make this burden lighter by providing
a group of temporary thumbnail images, some of which may be viewed on the
screen as an array of displayed pictures. The process of moving forward or
backward to the adjoining group is done by scrolling. The images are sequenced
in alphanumeric order by image name.
Three applications known to have this capability are JASC Media Center Plus,
ACDSee, and Irfan View. Media Center displays most of 24 thumbnail images
at one time and Irfan View most of five thumbnail images at one time.

Here is a review found at CNET by Ken Feinstein:

A messy photo collection can cripple a fledgling photographer more quickly than
bad lighting. Overwhelmed by more digital photos than you can handle?
Consider whipping your collection into shape with ACDSee 4.0, a digital photo
management tool that lets you view, organize, print, and share those amazing
shots over the Internet. ACDSee is a great buy for digicam enthusiasts who don't
plan to upgrade to Windows XP. However, if you spring for XP, don't spend
$49.95 on this tool; you'll find most of ACDSee's features already tucked within
Microsoft's new OS. Like PhotoPrint, ACDSee offers extensive tools for sharing
photos on the Internet, but it really shines at helping prolific shooters organize
their images.

Irfan View has a feature that lets you step quickly from one image file to the next
at full image size by clicking on either of two arrows on the toolbar. Simply
clicking on either mouse button will advance or retard the view to the next frame
in alphabetic order within that folder, depending on whether you click on the left
or the right button. When you do this, you will see the file name presented on the
screen along with the image. This feature makes Irfan View a photo album
viewer that can flip photos manually..

In addition, it serves as a multimedia player that can be operated in a few

different modes, each of which are easy to set up. Irfan View automatically step
through all the slides in a folder. To return to normal frame viewing, strike the
ESC key.

It also has a slideshow feature that allows you to select the images to be shown
from files on your hard drive. It creates a text file of the full path and file name,
which can be played from the slideshow player.

A caveat on thumbnail presentations

A user should be aware that when using either of these applications for
previewing a very large group of files in one folder, Windows, together with the
the application program, will have the shortcoming of not having enough memory
to accommodate the formation of each of the temporary image files as
thumbnails. Thus, you may have gaps in the collection that will be displayed as
thumbnails. If a user does much work with the selection of image files from
folders containing large numbers of clip art images, it may behoove them to use
file management techniques to organize files into folders of about 400 or fewer.

Another thing a user can anticipate is that if you place a large number of image
files in temporary image form, like when previewing as thumbnail images, the
application program may retain so much data in shared memory that the reserve
capacity of system resources drop to a very low level. If this occurs, you may
note unusual and sluggish behavior of your computer, like being unable to
connect to your ISP. This situation can be corrected by re-booting your
computer.
Visua and imagoWeb features

Visua and imagoWeb are speedy programs for viewing and converting your
graphics files. The program supports a multitude of file formats, including JPEG,
GIF, BMP, DIB, RLE, AVI, and WMF. Features include a TWAIN interface for
linking to the scanning software, a thumbnail image viewer for previewing all the
images in a given directory, print-preview capabilities, and more. New features
include a wizard slide show, wizard batch-conversion, and HTML file creation
capabilities that let you display images as thumbnails with links to the full size
images. This software is in Italian and English.

Viewing images at full size in web browser

A feature is available in web browsers to resize the image that it presents to you
in the screen. You can view the 2 megapixel digital camera images at a
convenient size on the screen if this feature is enabled. This feature can be
enabled or disabled. The default setting is for it to be enabled.

A user should be aware of this feature and should know if it is enabled or

disabled. If a user plans to view and print images in an application other than the
web browser, they may want to make sure that this feature is disabled, so they
will see the image at full size and realize that this is the size it will appear in other
viewers and the size that will be sent to the printer. Then they can determine the
extent of re-sizing and cropping that is necessary for their purposes.
The setting for making this change is in the Internet Options dialog box on the
page that opens with the Advanced tab, and in the Multimedia group, which is far
down on this page. The small box beside “Enable Automatic Image Resizing”
will have a check mark in it if this feature is enabled.

The Internet Options page can be found in Control Panel. It can also be found
while in the internet browser by clicking on Tools in the toolbar. A drop-down
menu will show Internet Options.

A user should also be aware that when you print from a web browser, you will
print header and footer data and your margins will be determined by the margin
settings of your browser. It can be cumbersome to alter these settings. They
features are convenient for capturing information about where web data was
gathered. They also affect how email messages are printed.

Viewers with a “Zoom “ capability

You may find that there are benefits when using a viewer that has a zoom
viewing ability. These viewers include Irfan View, ACDSee, and PhotoImpact by
Ulead. This feature may be used to zoom out by a value that will provide a
display of a large photo on your screen such that you don’t have to scroll to see
major parts of the photo.
 File management
Creating, downloading, finding, copying, moving, and saving files are all
important tasks which help a user manage files on a computer. Only a few basic
skills and concepts are required. Working with these skills will make it a lot easier
to manage how files are handled.

Windows Explorer

A user should gain familiarity with Windows Explorer in order to understand

where files are stored. To some extent Windows Explorer may be regarded as a
browser for examining file and folder placement on a drive. It is important to
access Windows Explorer often to see where files are located within the
hierarchy of a given drive, thus, a shortcut should be available to provide easy
access.

Two panels will appear in Windows Explorer, the left panel will show Desktop, My
Computer, and Recycle Bin, and a few other key items like My Documents folder
and My Network (Places).

Most often, you will want to see some of the hierarchy within My Computer, and
you can do so by clicking on the plus sign to the left of the words My Computer.
After doing this, you will see each of the identified drives on your computer.
These will include 31/2 FLOPPY (A:) and LOCAL DISK (C:), as well as any other
CD-ROM drives or hard drive partitions, etc. In the left panel, you will be able to
see additional hierarchy of folders within drives, or sub-folders within folders by
clicking on the plus sign to the left of the drive or folder you wish to examine.
A window slot at the top of Windows Explorer will show the name of a drive or a
folder, which is the drive or folder which has been opened for examination. The
first-level of folders below that of the drive or folder being examined will appear in
the right panel, along with any files which are not within any of these folders. The
folders will appear at the top of the right panel and will have an outline that shows
a folder tab, and will be shown as yellow. Files will have an icon identifying the
application which is set for opening it, followed the text of the file name.

A user may choose to also show the file extension for each file, which can be
made to appear following the file name, and a dot. The file extension is a three-
(sometimes four-) character group which identifies a specific file type. This
information can be useful in helping the user determine the type of file which is
shown.

To show the file extensions, do the following: from the Windows Explorer screen,
find the command Folder Options in a drop-down menu. To find the proper drop-
down menu, choose View in the toolbar of Windows 95 or 98, choose Tools in
any other version. From the proper drop-down menu, click on Folder Options,
then on the View tab, then unchceck the box that says "Hide file extensions for
known file types."

Making a shortcut icon for the Desktop

To make it easy to access Windows Explorer, you may want to have a shortcut
icon available on your Desktop screen. The easiest way to do that is as follows:
From the Desktop screen, click on Start, run the mouse pointer up to Programs
and look for Windows Explorer, which will be near the end of the alphabetical
listing of programs in the start menu. Then do a right-click-and-drag on Windows
Explorer and release the right mouse button when the pointer is over any blank
area of the desktop. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on "Create shortcut
here," and a shortcut for Windows Explorer will appear. Then do a right-click-and-
drag on the shortcut to place it among the other shortcut icons, and release the
right mouse button when the shortcut is in place.

Copying or moving files

As these words imply, copying means making a copy at another location without
disturbing the the file at the source location. Moving a file means that the file
becomes re-located from it’s original source location to a new location. In the
Windows Explorer screen, a file is generally moved or copied from a location in
the right panel to a location within a drive or folder which is displayed in the left
panel. A user can right-click-and-drag the file to the chosen location in the left
panel and release the right mouse button, and then choose whether to "Copy" or
"Move" by clicking on the desired menu item that appears.

Dialog boxes which have Windows Explorer features

When downloading from the internet, you will often see a dialog box which
resembles the key features of Windows Explorer. This dialog box is there to help
you make the same kinds of selections which are provided by the large-screen
vesrsion of Windows Explorer. At first, you may not see the drives and folders in
the same detail – jusr realize that the folder you are looking for can be located by
recognizing where it is in the overall hierarchy.

The "Find" or "Search" feature

Often, you may wonder where a given file is located on your computer. A feature
called "Find" on Windows 95 and 98, and called "Search" on other versions of
Windows provides the ability to find either file or folder names, or files which
contain search terms that you supply. This feature is located as the third or fourth
step above the Start button in the Start menu. After clicking on Start, click on
"Start" or "Find." Then click on "For files or folders." You will find a "Search
Results" dialog box with three slots in which to insert the terms you choose to
search on. The top slot is called "Search for Files or Folders named," the second
slot is called "containing text," and the third slot is named "Look in."

Generally, the Look in slot has a default entry consisting of the entire hard drive.
You can narrow this down to a folder or sub-folder within the hard drive by
browsing on the available drives. To find a small dialog box to help make this
selection, click on the triangular down arrow to the right of the named hard
drive(s). In this dialog box, when you click on enough plus signs to get to the
selected folder, highlight it and it will become the chosen folder for the "Look in"
slot after you hit the Okay button.

If you know the file or folder name, or if you know the first few letters of either,
enter that in the top slot, and perform a search. It may be helpful to maximize the
Search Results box to find the "Search Now" button and to see the result of the
search.

If you know of specific words that may be unique to the file you are looking for
but you don’t know the file name, leave the first slot blank and enter a search
term or search phrase in the middle slot. Realize that this search will take longer
because your computer must look at the contents of files, not just their names.
 Scanning

A scanner provides a user with the means for making a digital image from a
variety of viewable sources. Generally those sources are on paper and contain
printed images or text or both. In most applications the viewed source will
depend on reflected light providing an optical image for the scanning sensors to
see. With the advent of very high-resolution scanning, some scanners can see
the image as an optical view through a film (negative or positive film). Thus, a
user can make digital images of their photo slides.

A few different end uses of the scanned images should be reviewed so a user
may consider the scanner as a kind of “tool” that can assist them in doing a
variety of things.

A typical use is for making digital images of pictures – whether these pictures are
of photos printed on photo paper or those taken from magazines, newspapers or
other print media sources. In a similar vein, the source “picture” may be a line
drawing, cartoon, table, graph, fabric, etc. Generally, the end use of the digital
image is to be archived, displayed, or shared as a viewable file, although it may
get embedded into other software for purposes of making a more suitable
presentation.

Another use for making digital images is to prepare a suitable file to send to your
computer’s printer.
Yet another use is to make a file of primarily printed text that can be converted
into a file in which the text appears as a formatted text file. This process requires
the use of Optical Character Recognition sofware. Varying degrees of detail in
the layout of the scanned text file may be represented in the formatted text file,
and some degree of maintaining the layout of a page of text and images, as well
as the elements of a page consisting of a printed form is also a possibility with
the right software and its judicious use. In most cases, some editing will be
necessary, as the compiled image is not likely to be letter perfect, with everything
properly positioned.

Many reasons are cited for making a word-compiled file from a printed page.
The resultant file is likely to be much smaller, the file is often more “crisp” in its
viewing qualities, it may be integrated with other compiled text prepared by the
user, etc.

Before a scanned image is produced, the user should account for the type of
useage being planned, so that proper settings can be made for the scanner to
acquire the kind of image desired. There are about four major determinations to
be made:

• Is the image to contain color or black-and-white?

• How much spatial resolution (dot per inch (dpi), or fineness of the
scanning grid) is needed?
 • How much color (or black-and-white) resolution is needed?

• Is the source a photo image obtained from print media which used a half-
tone screen?

More advanced users may find that some other settings may enhance the
scanned image.

Choices of scanner settings

In most cases, a scanning resolution of 100 dpi will be okay for scanning photos,
unless you expect to use the digital image as an enlargement of the source
photo.

For black-and-white images, a few settings of “color” resolution may be made,

and the manner of specifying these settings vary among the companion scanner
software. In some cases, descriptive terms of end-use of the image file will guide
you, such as for filing, faxing, or copying, in which case this choice selects one
bit per pixel (no shades of gray, only black and white). For getting photo-quality
reproduction capability, you select photo, which provides for 8-bit grayscale
resolution (this is the equivalent of 24-bit in color, which requires 8-bits of
resolution for each of three colors). For converting to text, select OCR, which
usually provides a default setting of one bit per pixel (i.e., black-and-white only),
as well as a spatial resolution of 300 dpi. These parameters meet the
requirements for OCR software. Most software will provide for custom settings
which vary from the defaulted settings.

For color images, you get 24-bit color resolution, and you usually can select
between “Normal” and “Best”, or some similar choice. The default values here
are often 100 dpi and 300 dpi, respectively. Recognize that the 300 dpi setting in
color will require a lot of bites of data per square inch, and that the resulting
image may be about three times larger in linear dimension than the source
image. Also note that there will be nine times as many bites in a file of the same
source photo when scanned with 300 dpi rather than 100 dpi. Again, custom
values of dpi which vary from these default values may be chosen to obtain a
result which meets your objective.

We can show that a color image that fills an 800 x 600 pixel screen often
contains about 1.4 million bites. This assumes that the image file is not shrunk
by a file-reduction process called compression, and that the image is presented
at the normal size of 96 dpi. The temporary image developed in the scanner
software meets these criteria, and the presented image will be 8.3 x 6.3 inches.
If scanned from a source that would produce a color image of that size, the
scanned file when using a setting of 300 dpi would be about 12.6 million bites.

Thus, one should use discretion in making high-resolution settings for their
scanned images, as they may make a very large file that prints a picture that
won’t fit on a piece of printer paper or on a monitor screen unless it is modified by
image modifying software. Further, more resources of file size and compiling
time will be used that won’t be beneficial to the end result.

Software associated with scanner image creation

Besides the scanner driver software required to be installed for the scanner to
operate, some comments will be made about the software used when operating
the scanner.

The “Twain” software provides the abilty to make the settings mentioned above,
and (typically) to call for a low-resolution Preview of the scanned object. Then
the user can select out (“crop”, if you will) the areas outside of the area of interest
(a custom setting of the positional and size requirements for the area chosen
from the previewed image). In the case of Hewlett-Packard scanners, they may
by-pass the preview, proceed directly to a high-resolution image, and then allow
you to crop out the non-useful areas before exporting the image within the
selected boundary.

Scanners also provide some additonal “Advanced” features such as “De-screen”,

which should be used when copying from a half-tone printed media image. And,
it provides the Scan button for starting the scanning process.

A companion image viewer, image modifier, image exporter/converter software is

used to acquire the image file from the Twain source, to present the scanned
image for review, to make modifications to it, and to “Save As”, or “Export” it to a
folder as a file having a name and a file format extension of your choosing. In
most cases, a scanned photo would be exported or saved in the JPG format.
Initially, this software allows you to gain access to the Twain software to make
the needed settings and the Preview of what’s on the flat-bed glass screen prior
to scanning the desired area seen in the Preview. Many of the image-modifying
programs (e.g., Irfan View, Photo Deluxe, Paint shopm Pro, Visua, and Ulead
Photo Express) as well as Optical Character Recognition programs provide the
means to access the Twain software for purposes of acquiring the image and
then refining it to obtain the desired result.

To get the most from the use of their Twain devices (scanner and camera), a
user should take care to review the acquired images with a critical eye and
determine if they want to make improvements to that image. If a scanned image
could benefit by re-selecting settings on the scanner software and performing
another scan, the user may choose to do so.

Suppliers of Twain devices bundle image modification software with their

products. The user should be aware of the various kinds of improvements that
can be made, and have familiarity with the image modifying software and the
processing steps that they have at their disposal to achieve their objectives. In
the case of a Visioneer scanner, a user does not need a separate image
modifying program, as they have an integrated software package (PaperPort) to
acquire the image from the Twain software. However, the image-modifying
capabilty is limited, and a user should consider having a separate image modifier
to improve upon the quality of a picture, and to crop and re-size the picture, if that
is needed. The PaperPort software makes provision for exporting the image in a
number of standard image formats. A user will ofter choose JPG and a quality
setting around 70 for most scanned photos.

After having done this with an indivudual scanned image, the image file is redy to
sent as an attachment, or may be archived on a hard drive or CD.

Many of the comments made about acquiring and modifying an image obtained
from a scanner will apply to an image obtained from a digital camera.

The software functions described above may be separate items or may be

combined into one, as has been done by the PaperPort software offered by
Scansoft (often bundled with Visioneer scanners). The image modifier software
acquires a (temporary) file of the scanned image from the Twain software. In the
case of PaperPort software, individual images are retained unless the user
deletes them, and a “thumbnail” of that image is a reminder of those images that
it retains. A user should purge these files after the data from these images is
exported to a file which can be used elsewhere. In a typical stand-alone image
modifier, the acquired image is truly a temporary file which is not retained when
the user closes that application. Because the image conversion/modification
capabilities are integrated with the “Twain” software, PaperPort (bundled with
Visioneer scanners) may be one of the easier software packages to use when
scanning. There are some custom settings that determine whether a page of
scanned text will appear as a single column after the Optical Character
Recognition process, or whether it will place the text in the separate columns as
they were on the original.
An Optical Character Recognition software package may be needed or chosen
as an option. This may also be part of an integrated package, as in the
PaperPort software.

Various separate OCR programs are available, including Text Bridge and
Recognita, for example. Another type of specialty OCR program which also
retains page layout details and captures a mix of text and images exists. A
popular program of this type is ReadIRIS. Most OCR programs require that
scanner text be 300 or 400 dots per inch, and be one-bit color (that is, balck-and-
white). The process of commanding optical character recognition from within the
OCR software is often referred to as “recognition.” The result of this process is
often a compiled text character file with an RTF (Rich Text File) file extension.
Usually, there will be a few typos, and the text may need to be re-formatted to
suit the user’s desires.

In some cases, an OCR program will only function well if the image is taken
directly from the scanner. In other cases, a 300 X 300 black-and-white image file
may be opened in the OCR application, and be processed for OCR text
compilation. The user must make sure that the image file is strictly black-and-
white for the OCR application to accept it. One exception is ReadIRIS, which will
accept an image file with 24-bit colors.

A few words on scanning from a newspaper

A few things should be noted about newprint that makes it a unique challenge for
scanning. The paper is thin and some of the ink from the reverse side will be
visible on the front side. To suppress this factor, a user should have a black
sheet of paper available to place over the sheet that is laying on the glass bed of
the scanner. This sets a more uniform black background over the entire area
being scanned, and the ink pattern on the reverse side will be less noticeable in
the scanned image. A good paper to use for this purpose can be found in some
of the 3-ring transparent plastic protectors which are made to hold punched
paper sheets. A black paper of that weight from any source is convenient for this
purpose.

Although text and cartoons are printed with no grey content, the scanner should
be set for grey scale to get a good image.

Because the newsprint paper is far from being white, the image will often show
prominent amounts of grey background that should be white. A user can
compensate for much of this by increasing the brightness, prior to scanning
and/or after the image has been moved to an image processor. Along with the
increased brightness, the user should also increase the contrast, and perhaps
the gamma – the amout of each to be determined by observing the image
quality. If the newsprint is on a portion of the paper that has wrinkles or creases,
it is very difficult to do much about seeing these effects in the image. You may
get a far better result of you do the copying on a commercial copy machine. The
media which is they use to capture the image is more capable of providing an
image that doesn’t show as many effects of the wrinkles and creases.

If a photo is present in the scanned area, you should select “de-screen” or its
equivalent prior to scanning to suppress moiré effects.
Comments on the Moiré effect

When a color or grayscale image is printed in a newspaper or magazine, they

make use of a “half-tone” screen technique. This permits the offset press to hold
a block having the ability to transfer ink to the paper in a manner that permits
light to heavy deposits of ink of the desired color. The surface of this block has a
regular grid of dots that vary in size and in closeness that they can provide most
of the desired variation in ink deposition. Thus, if you were to take a microscope
and view the printed image, you would see the grid of dots.

When you do scanning, the scanner samples the “color” (saturation, intensity,
and hue – including shades of gray) in a regular grid also. In many cases, the
half-tone screen and the scanner will have a similar spacing of these grids. In
this case, there is a real likelihood that you will see an interference (or Moiré)
pattern in a resultant scanned image. The visual appearance is similar to that
which is seen with sheer curtains that are gathered and have two or more
overlapping layers through which to look.

It is important to learn the means for overcoming the Moiré effect so it will not
have an adverse affect on the scanned file. Two primary means are available at
the time of scanning, (1) setting the scanner’s dots per inch to a value of 200 or
higher, so the scanner grid is much finer that the half-tone grid, and (2) selecting
de-screen in the scanner software, a feature that suppresses the Moiré effect.
Other secondary means are available after an image is scanned, and they
consist of using the various image software modifiers that can reduce the Moiré
effect. Some users will have access to an Adobe software package that can
make some slight improvement to reduce the Moiré effect, but the net
improvement in the picture is usually not great, nor is the end result.

Additional scanner/scanning topics

At this point, the reader may want to have some concluding comments about
scanning, or a few simple statements about what to do next. The fact is that
working with images is too broad a topic to sum up in a brief conclusion. The
detailed manner in which you obtain a suitable Twain image, and what you do
with it, will depend on the steps that are specific to the software item available to
the user, and the comfort they have with being able to operate the individual
software items.

Some of the steps required for saving the image files will depend on the user’s
ability to perform file management. Some of the choices of file formats to select
for saving a given temporary image may be poor choices if the user does not
have a fair working knowledge of the benefits of the more common image file
formats.

Each of the topics which address what to do with a file obtained from a Twain
device can be treated as separate elemental pieces of expertise, and a user
should develop a working knowledge of enough of the steps used to perform
these additional tasks as will be needed for their purposes.
If a user is interested in retaining the layout of a multi-column article, they may
individual scan and OCR operations of each of the columns or other segments of
the original (e.g, images, captions, etc.). Then the individually-constructed text
files may be re-assembled in the chosen layout software.

If the user wants to make a digital replica of a form (or of an article layout) they
may use Readiris to their advantage. In it’s normal operational usage, Readiris
will scan an entire 8 ½ by 11 inch area and retain the positional and size details
of the text and images, but may not do an accurate job of performing the OCR
function, or of obtaining a good collection of the images that are present on the
original. Thus, a user can take whatever steps at their disposal are best suited to
re-construct the layout. This may include doing a batch of smaller scans of
segments of the original for performing OCR (perhaps on a more accurate OCR
software than Readiris), or for collecting appropriate image files, to gather the
elements best suited for the re-construction.

To dig deeper: http://www.scantips.com/

Browsers and images

Email browsers can accept attachments, which tend to stay with the message, at
least as long as the message is retained in the recipient’s browser. Attachments
are files, and users should be aware of a few issues with some kinds of files.

If a user wants to send or to archive the content of a web page in toto (with all the
“window dressing” images and secondary sidebar data), there is a way to
incorporate all of the associated image files that accompany the basic HTM or
HTML textual data. Microsoft has provided a program called Web Archive, a free
download to users who have an installed Office 2000 program. With the desired
HTM program name being displayed in Windows Explorer, do a right-click on the
program name and a left-click on the menu item which says save as a Web
archive. It takes a short while for the resulting MHT file to form. The MHT file
can be used as a file that is easier to manage for archiving, and as a file that can
carry the complete “dressed up” page as an email attachment.

Most modern web browsers and many other applications that are capable of
displaying the more common image formats will support the viewing of animated
GIFs. Note that animated GIFs will also display in the body of an email
message.

JavaScript provides some interesting features in graphic displays that can be

animated, interactive, etc. Note that JavaScript coding is contained with HTM
files, and can be sent as email attachments. When the recipient chooses either
Open file OR Save to disk, the HTM file will open in a web browser, and the
JavaScript content will be displayed.

Email browsers tend to have the capability to insert picture files into a message.
Those familiar with inserting stationery or colored backgrounds may be aware
that if you use a small image as a background picture in an email message, it will
replicate itself, tile fashion – to fill up the entire background of the browser
screen. The commands are Format|Background, then use the small browser box
to find the image file to insert.

A user can also send a picture (animated GIF, for example), as a direct picture
image within the body of an email, in which case you get just one image in the
message box. The commands are Insert|Picture – but note that to make Picture
available as a menu item you must first set HTML format to apply to the message
box of the composition window. You can place text in the message box and can
position the image with some of the composing screen tools.

A person generally can capture individual image files from the net (usually an
HTM or HTML file or its equivalent) by right-clicking on them and left-clicking on
“Save Picture As,” which provides a dialog box for browsing for the desired folder
in which to place it.

A person can always capture the content presented on the screen by using Alt +
Prnt Scrn, which places the screen image data on a clipboard. They can then
open MS Paint and do an Edit|Paste to import the image data into a temporary
BMP form in MS Paint. If the user wishes to capture more than the image data
shown on the screen, they can do so by modifying the effective “zoom” of their
screen by selecting more pixels for the screen to display.

Most users have their monitors set to display at 800 x 600 pixels, and alternate
settings may be selected, within the range of the values supported by by their
video card and other aspects of their computer, which can include their operating
system. To access these settings, open the desktop, right-click on any portion of
the desktop background, left-click on Properties, click on the Settings tab, a small
panel on the low right side of the this dialog box will say Screen area, and will
have a slider that can be dragged left or right. If you wish to capture a screen
that would contain about 10 inches of printed height, it is likely that you may do
so if you re-set to 1280 x 1024 pixels. However, you may find a need to
temporarily do away with the toolbars at top and bottom that mask the upper and
lower edges of your screen. Such a function is available and is called Full
Screen, which is accessed in View or Tools. To recover from a full screen
presentation so you can access tools to proceed with other steps, you can press
the Esc. button.

Fancy web displays often make use of Java Script files, which produce
interactive images which can be embedded within HTM files. Java Script files
will appear in web browsers, but not in email browsers.

Word 97 and Word 2000 readily accept images for insertion, and even allow you
to re-size them when they are embedded. They can be positioned quite
accurately if you know the tools and techniques for doing so. These Word
programs can also view or create HTML files. Normally, an HTML file would
open in a web browser. However, if you open the Word application first, then
open an existing HTML file in the Word application, it will display okay.

Animated GIFs that are inserted into Word files act differently, depending on
whether the Word application is viewing the Word file in the DOC format or in the
HTML format. In the latter, the animated GIF remains animated, in the former,
the GIF is not animated.

A user might have a reason to save a page layout as an image file. This is one
of the options available in Publishing software. Multi-column Word fles with small
text may not remain stable in their layout unless some strong measures are
taken to make them more stable. The problem lies in a feature of how the
specific width characteristics with proportional fonts is not retained. If the first
column on a page grows to have additional lines dues to a few words that have
expanded to create this change, the first column will not end at the designated
place, as the bottom margin determines the last row of text to be accepted. The
page can take on a most unfortunate upset of its layout.
Alternate means for obtaining stability is to take a “snapshot” of the displayed file
by doing a web capture, as described above. This usually results in an image file
that retains most of the clarity of the file as it was presented in the Word
application. A user can import a word or text file into MS Paint, also with little
loss of clarity. Another method is to create a PDF file by using an Adobe PDF
Writer application. PDF does not display small point sizes of text with much
clarity – also – PDF files are usually much bigger than Word DOC files. In each
of the above cases, you lose the ability to edit the text in the new file format.

Kinko’s prefers to work with PDF files than with Word DOC files because they are
more stable. Both file types carry the layout margins with them, but PDF files are
better at retaining the exact text layouts.

An older or limited edition version of PDF Writer is included with all versions of
Adobe Photo Deluxe, and usually gets installed unless you find a way to decline
it. It may not be obvious whether you have it installed or not. The best way to
check on its presence is to take an inventory of the “printers” installed on your
computer. That’s where you may find the PDF Writer.

Panoramic photos
Joining digital pictures can be done quite nicely in an application like MS Word.
If two or more pictures represent side-by-side images taken from the same spot
over a short interval and with the same camera settings, there is a good chance
that you will be able to join them in a seamless fashion if the photos overlap each
other slightly. You don’t have to ensure that the camera remains perfectly
horizontal, but it is helpful if you can come close to achieving that. Digital
cameras work quite well for this purpose because you can see quality results of
each frame shortly after the pictures are taken, and you avoid the steps required
to get a set of images scanned from photographic prints.

Some corrections may be needed to ensure that the color balance, brightness,
and contrast match well at the joining lines. Some cropping may be needed to
trim away portions of some of the frames that extend above or below the
extremities of the other frames. If you don’t position the camera on a fixed, flat,
horizontal surface, you may need to do a “free rotate” of a few degrees to make
the picture content match in the joining lines. Most image applications by Adobe
provide a free rotate feature.

It may take some reasoned judgment on the part of the user to determine how
big the finished panoramic picture will be and how many pixels should be
retained in the individual frames that will be joined. You should have more dots
per inch in the individual frames than in the final product in order to preserve
picture quality.

MS Word is suggested as a good program to use for joining the frames. You can
position each frame accurately and the program retains most of the picture
quality. It has a feature that allows you to choose which overlapped frame is in
the foreground at each joint. There is a 22-inch limit on page width in the
landscape mode. For other reasons, you would probably want to limit the width
to about 13 inches – the height can be whatever is convenient, perhaps around 4
inches. Four inches is suggested as a reasonable height for viewing on a screen
since you only have to scroll the picture sideways. If 4 inches is a nominal
height, then a width of 10 to 13 inches may serve your purposes well.
Let’s jump ahead, for the moment, to the point where you have made seamless
joints of the frames in a DOC file set up for more than 13 inches wide. The first
thing you need to do is to make a digital image file of the unrefined panoramic
picture showing in MS Word. For most users, the best option available to them
may be to use the “zoom” feature inherent in the “Desktop|Settings|Screen area”
setting. Depending on your computer, you should be able to get to a screen area
of at least 1280 X 1024 pixels. The maximum width of an image that can be
displayed on the screen will be 13.3 inches.

By temporarily re-setting your screen area to this value you can perform a screen
capture and obtain a digital file on the clipboard, which will provide up a 13-inch
finished photo size. A screen capture “Copies” the entire screen image on a
virtual “clipboard” by stiking “Alt” and “Prnt Scrn” at the same time. With the
screen-captured image on the clipboard, “Paste” it into MS Word. At this point,
the image in MS Paint will be 96 dots per inch, presumably the same size and
resolution you will choose for the finished picture, but it will have extraneous
picture elements that can be cropped away. The extranous elements come from
the fact that the picture doesn’t completely fill the screen, and there will be some
toolbars showing, particularly at top and bottom. Don’t worry about the toolbars
present in the MS Paint application, as they are not part of the image.

You can do all or part of the cropping in MS Paint, which presents a temporary
image in BMP format. To move the image to another application for conversion
to JPG format, you must save the image in some format, and that may as well be
BMP. The image conversion program will then be used to make any further
quality adjustments to the picture and to convert it to the JPG image format that
uses a compressed file format and make the file smaller with little loss of picture
quality if a good program and a high enough quality-factor choice is used when
converting to JPG.
Now to address the issues involved in making the images join and to ensure that
they will blend well with the adjoining frame. First, the user should examine each
of the frame images they intend to join end-to-end. Verify that there is some
overlap between each picture to be joined. Note if there are dissimilarities
between brightness, contrast and color balance of each frame. Choose a frame
image size and dots per inch resolution that fits the requirements for the finished
product. It is recommended that the dots per inch be somehat above 100,
perhaps 150. It is recommended that the frames not be cropped, and that the
frame height be set just slightly greater than the height of the finished product. It
is recommemded that these frame images by in JPG format. These are issues
that should be worked over carefully to make the next steps go smoothly.

Open MS Word. Go to File|Page setup|Paper size. There you will selct paper
size and orientation. Since you are dealing with a wide page layout, choose
“Landscape” for paper orientation. Note that in paper size you have a few
standard size selections and a custom selection. Pick a size that will give you at
least a 14-inch width. Then go to the tab that says “Margins.” Here it isn’t very
critical what you pick for top and bottom margins, and an inch should be fine.
Next, select the left and right margins to give at a clear width space of at least a
half-inch more than the planned finished size of the panoramic picture.

Close out the Page Setup dialog box. Note that there is a blinking cursor at the
“home” position, which has been determined by the choice of top and left
margins. This home position may as well be the point used as an “anchor” point
from which each of the images will be positioned. Decide on the method of
importing the images into Word. You can “Paste” the image or you can “Insert”
it. If you paste it, don’t introduce a frame that will prescibe the size or position of
the imported image. If you insert it, click on “Insert” in the menu bar, and select
Picture|From File in the “Insert Picture” dialog box. Then use the browse feature
to locate a frame image, highlight it and click on the “Insert” button.
In either case, you should have imported a frame image at 100% size, and
positioned with its upper-left corner at the home position. The frame you import
first shoud be the one at the far right side of the panoramic picture. The reason
is that each time you mport a new image it will go to the home position, and
frames may completely overlay other frames, making things difficult. Next,
position the imported far right frame as follows: click on “Format” in the menu
bar, then click on “Picture” on the drop-down menu (note that unless you have
imported a picture, Word will not provide “Picture” as an option in the menu).

This will present a “Format Picture” dialog box which is defaulted to sow the
“Layout” tab. Select “In front of text” as a “Wrapping style.” Click on the
“Advanced” button to open the “Advanced Layout” dialog box which defaults to
the “Picture position” tab, which is the right place to be for the next set of
manipulations. On the picture position screen, note that there are the
“Horizontal” and “Vertical“ panels. In the Horizontal panel, “Absolute position” will
have a dot in the “radio” button to its left, and two data slots to its right. The first
slot will show the value of the left margin in inches, and “Columnn” will show in
the right slot which is preceeded by the words “to the left of.” In the “Vertical”
panel, “Absolute position” will have a dot in the “Radio” button to its left, and two
data slots to its right. The first slot will show the value of the top margin in
inches, and “Paragraph” will show in the right slot which is preceeded by the
word “below.”

Note that the home position (for text) can be thought of in terms of setting the left
boundary for paragraphs, and setting the top boundary for the first line of text.
Vertical positions below the home position are determined by the number of line
feeds that took you to this lower position.
This may have relevance when you are inserting images into Word where you
want to introduce photo captions. Note that the paragraph symbol ¶, in digital
word compilation represents a line feed and a carriage return (one line lower, and
begin at the left edge of the same column). This digression may be helpful in
recognizing why Word uses “Column” to refer to the horizontal reference line,
and why they use “Paragraph” to refer to the vertical reference line in relation to
positioning pictures.

The last paragraph is an introduction to a concept of positioning which has been

established for MS Word. Positioning of the frames in Word, by using methods
described here, is based on setting horizontal and vertical distances from a
reference point. Initially, the reference point is the upper-left corner of the page,
not the home position. Next we discuss how to change the reference position
from the upper-left corner of the page to the home position, which is a good
practice for placing pictures in text layouts, which you want to do as part of
another project. The steps required to change this reference point are relative
simple.

To reset the referenc point, clear all dialog boxes and view the image frame in
the WORD program file. Highlight the picture by left-clicking on it. This will make
eight little black squares appear, four in the corners and four at the mid-point of
each edge. Do a Format|Picture to open the Format Picture dialog ox, click on
the Advanced button to get the Advanced Layout dialog box, which opens to the
defaulted tab Picture position. In the first slot of the Horizontal panel, change the
value to zero. In the first slot of the Vertical panel change the value to zero.
Click on the OK button. Now note that the image has jumped up to the upper left
corner of the page.

Then close out the Advanced Layout dialog box and re-open it. Now you will
note that there are values in the left slots of the Horizontal and Vertical panels
that are negative. Change these values to zero. That sets the home position as
your new reference point. Click on OK, and you will note that the image returns
to the home position. Now you are at liberty to set the Horizontal and Vertical
values so the frame is positioned approximately where you want it. The only
requirements for positioning these frames is that they need to be precisely
located with relation to each other so they will make a seamlees joint, and that all
frames must be within the boundaries set by the page margins.

Then go through the same steps of importing and positioning the remaining
frame images.

Note that the determination of which frame “moves back” so the overlapped
portion will hide behind the adjoining frame can be made by selecting “behind
text” in the “Text wrapping style” page for one of the adjoining frames. Note also
that you will have to run through the sequence involved in selecting “behind text”
a second time for that setting to become saved. Note also that of the five
selections of text wrapping style, “None” will not enable the positioning settings to
become available in the Picture Position dialog box.

This description has been a challenge to identify the critical steps involved in the
planning and the execution of the necessary steps. Although the sequence of
topics may seem convoluted, I thought it would be best to build upon these
planning and execution steps in a way that would serve the reader while they are
reading it the first time and for them to use as a reference when performing the
steps. The process may seem prohibitively complex. If you choose to try these
things on your own computer without personal guidance, it is manageable for a
user who is committed to challenging projects. There are many steps, and none
of them are particularly complex, although the word descriptions may seem
complex.

Putting a caption below a landscape image using MS Word

This material is included here for a few reasons. One to show the user that the
landscape image can be used as any other image, and can be re-inserted into a
new Word file which is capable of introducing text anywhere on the page.
Another is to give the user some appreciation for the use of text positioning when
images are present.

Remember from the above discussion of positioning the inserted images in

relation to a reference point that the reference point used (above) is the home
position. If you want to have text on a page, you want to establish at least one
line for text which is below the position of the reference point. If you don’t, you
won’t have success at entering text below this reference point, as there are no
new lines available for text below the line which is used as a reference for picture
positioning. This means that if you only have one available line and the
picture(s) is (are) anchored to it, striking the “Enter” key, which produces a
carriage return and a line feed, will move the picture(s) down, and will not provide
any new lines below the reference point, which now moves down with each line
feed.

Showing formatting characters

A user will find that it is handy to be able to see the formatting characters
associated with the page layout. These are the representations of things like
paragraph symbols, character spaces, indicators of tab commands, punctuation,
etc. The formatting tool is in the Formatting toolbar and is represented by the
paragraph (¶) symbol. It is a click-ON and click-Off button.

If you plan to place a caption below an inserted image, you should start with at
least one paragraph symbol below the paragraph symbol at the home position.
When you insert an image, you should highlight the home position so the image
will be anchored to that location. Later, you will have a paragraph symbol below
that picture reference point for doing all the required text processing. Note that
you may want to place the image at least 0.1 inches to the right of the home
position or choose the “behind text” option for text wrapping of the image so you
will be able to see the insertion point for adding text. The insertion point is
identified by a highlighted paragraph symbol or by the blinking cursor which
appears when the formatting symbols aren’t showing.

Making page layouts

This may seem an unlikely topic to relate to image modification, but there is a
connection between the two.

Being more specific, this document will cover a few topics regarding making page
layouts, some of the popular applications used when making layouts, and some
of the ways in which these applications may serve to make desired modifications
to images.

Let us highlight the use of publishing programs and the use of word processing
programs. Microsoft offers Publisher and Word in its Office collections. Other
software companies offer their versions.

Each can be used to place images on a page layout containing formatted text.
Each can be used to save the page layouts as image files for a variety of uses, or
as HTML files which may be posted to the web.

In addition, HTML editing programs like Microsoft’s Front Page aid in making
HTML files that have certain types of complex layout features.
We recognize the value of being able to add legends and/or captions to pictures,
and the value of formatting the layout of pages having multiple images with text
associated with each image. This is the usual manner of printing or archiving
digital photos or preparing photos for presentation as a “photo album.”

A user should keep in mind that a word program or a publishing program may be
used, as well as a program designed specifically to prepare photos for printing or
for photo album use. One reason for making the choice of the more general-
purpose word program or publishing program is that it may allow you to have
more flexibility in the end result – particularly if you are not preparing the layouts
for presentation as a photo album which may be viewed on your computer, or
may be sent to others for use on a specific photo album viewer.

Specific programs that can improve some images

Suppose that you have an image that does not have uniform illumination over the
objects that you wish to highlight. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to correct for this
deficiency and balance the brightness so the image looks better? Certain
possibilities exist for modifying the image to obtain more uniform brightness,
where that is needed.

The means for doing this is to introduce a “layering” coverlay of a type of

“transparent” layer that compensates for the improper balance of brightness over
the areas where this is needed. For those who have a backgound in obtaining
these results with photo enlargements, it is somewhat equivalent to the “dodging”
technique, in which an object is used to restrict the light from the projector which
passes through areas of the negative which are too “bright,” and thus, the
amount of light falling on the enlarging paper is reduced in the area where it
would otherwise be excessive.
The transparency overlay used in digital image processing may be defined in
terms of its transparency or its opacity. These properties are the opposite of
each other, and the value of these properties must vary over the region of the
boundary of the iamge being modified for it to be effective in providing the
desired balance of brightness.

One program which allows the user to “colorize” a black-and-white image is

Paint Shop Pro, made by JASC Corporation. It provides a variety of “tools” for
applying gradations of opacity of a chosen color, and with a variety of application
patterns for this colored layer. The result can be quite good when a black-and-
white image is of fair size, and a custom pattern of colors are desired to be
applied to create the desired colors.

Paint Shop Pro can also be used to apply patterns of a gray overlay to create a
transparency that compensates for the bright areas. This gray overlay may be
used with either color or black-and-white images.

The user may find that it is difficult to apply a transparency layer that makes a
smooth transition of the gray density gradient, without leaving evidence of a
“splattered paint effect” due to the custom application of the “paint.” This custom
application is controlled by positioning of the mouse pointer, and the “paint” is
applied as black spots whose distribution pattern is governed by the selection of
the type of application tool and by its parameters of making a “tight” or a “spread
out” distribution pattern. An example of the paint application tools that may be
selected is an airbrush, and the user can make settings that control the spread
and the density of the paint droplets.

This type of modification usually results in an image having a “mottled”

appearance, as the evidence of a “granular” effect due to the spotty application of
paint droplets will be evident.
A program that overcomes these shortcomings is provided by Page Plus, a
publishing program by Serif. The feature which allows a user to compensate for
non-uniform brightness is a collection of transparencies that provide a variety of
patterns of gradients that can be placed over the image which needs
modification. The difference is that these transparncies have been generated by
software techniques that provide a smooth transition between levels of density
gradient.

The user has the ability to choose the transparency pattern that best
compensates for the image being modified, and can further tailor the extent and
location over which the gradient changes are most prominent by the use of tools
that set the percentage of opacity from maximum to minimum that will be applied
to the chosen coverlay. The program makes an adjustment so that the
rectangular boundaries of the overlay match those of the image being modified.

The end result of judicious modifications

Coupled with other “quality” adjustments of brightness, contrast, gamma, and

color balance, the resulting modifications can be dramatic.

Comments about Page Plus

Page Plus may be operated in the same manner as a Microsoft Publisher

program, and many of the screen layouts are nearly identical. However, except
for a few features that are unique to Page Plus, Publisher may do the basic tasks
far better than Page Plus.
The basic tasks are considered to be extracting either an image file of the page
layout or an HTML file of the page layout. Page Plus does a creditable job of
retaining clarity of the individual image in a page layout, but unless all text is
quite large, a user with a critical eye will notice some degradation of text clarity,
especially if a slight difference of effective “zoom” magnification is used.

In regard to obtaining an HTML file that retains ANY significant detail of the entire
page layout – GOOD LUCK !

However, it provides another feature that may be interesting. That feature is the
ability to incline text by rotating it through a custom selection of “free rotate”
angle. You don’t have to be constrained to using multiples of 90 degrees. Again,
this feature is of greatest benefit if you can take a block of text and increase its
font size by at least double before performing a free-rotate. Before placing this
block of text in a layout, you may have to reduce its size to the original value.
The reason for the caveat regarding the rotation of an enlarged block of text is
that Page Plus does not do a creditable job of preserving text clarity.

Comments about “free-rotate.”

As part of the artistic “tools” available to the user, they may wish to rotate an
image through an angle of their choice. A few image modifying programs can do
this, and you may want to identify which ones can do this. Programs that can do
this include the more recent versions of Adobe Photo Deluxe (ver. 4.0 and up?).

Comments about image viewing programs

When viewing an image file, most viewing programs have a bias toward
presenting the lightest portion of an image somewhat darker than it should be. In
particular, this becomes evident when saving an image that has a white
background to a JPG or GIF format, and then inserting that image into a page
layout with a white background. The background of the inserted image file
usually will appear as a pale lavender shade. This can be avoided, and a
general improvement in the appearance of the image file will occur if the user
takes care to increase the brightness and the contrast of the image before saving
it. For those who use either Irfan View or Photo Deluxe, settings in the range of
12 to 16 for brightness and 15 to 18 for contrast will usually suffice. For images
that have a dark background, pre-bias settings in the range of 4 to 6 for
brightness as well as contrast usually work well.

Images in MS Word
Microsoft Word is a great choice for embedding photos for a few reasons. You
can place more than one image on a page, the images can be positioned, text
can be included, you can fix the margins that are suitable for printing, and you
can do a Page Preview to see how the printed page will look.

A major change occurred between Word versions of the 6.0 and 95 eras, with
Word 97 and newer being built on an entirely new platform. With the older
versions, placement and sizing of images depended to some extent on the use of
frames. In the newer versions, an entirely different set of features and tools are
available to determine how the images and text will be positioned and sized. The
newer Word versions integrate well with other MS Office applications. This
discussion will be limited to the newer versions of Word.

Photo images should be archived in a folder with appropriate file names and file
extensions before attempting to place them on a page in Word. Thus, a user
must do a “Save As” or an “Extract” operation to copy the data from a scanned
temporary file into a saved and named file that can be considered transportable.

For introductory purposes, comments about the use of placing images into Word
will be kept simple. You can get fancier, but it's better to start with the stuff that's
easier.

When taking an image from the scanner software and using it elsewhere, you do
a Save As or an Export to take the data from the temporary scanned image and
save it as a named file in a designated folder. Also, you have the choice of
selecting the file extension, like JPG, GIF, BMP, etc. When you select JPG, you
may also have to select a "quality" value, e.g., 70 on a scale of 0 to 100. This
determines a quality selection of the resultant JPG image. Higher numbers give
more accurate JPG images, and result in larger file sizes.

If you are dealing with family or scenery images, choosing JPG and a quality
setting of 70 is probably a good idea.

To practice placing images in a Word file, open the Word application and get an
unsaved file showing a blank page (it will also have a default setting for margins
as determined by a prior template setting for Word documents). Change the
margin settings in File|Page Setup, if desired. If you want to orient the paper so
the 11-inch dimension is sideways, select Landsacpe in File|Page Setup|Paper
Size.
To do things the simple way, start out by hitting the Enter key a few times to
place a few paragraph symbols down the left margin. Next, you may as well hit
the paragraph icon on the Word toolbar, so you see all the formatting symbols.

Doing these things sets up the page for you to choose an entry point for inserting
each photo. When a photo image is inserted it can be done by Pasting from your
virtual clipboard, or by choosing to Insert the photo file. The insertion point is
determined by the location of the cursor. The cursor's vertical location is set to a
vertical line location made available by the paragraph marks, and it's horizontal
location is determined by tabs and spaces (or text). The cursor is placed in the
normal way, using either the mouse pointer or the keyboard.

Upon Pasting or Insertion of the image, it will appear in a location with its upper
left corner "anchored" to the insertion point. Its size may be varied by dragging
on the small black square at the lower right of the photo.

Having a string of paragraph symbols going down the page, and in particular,
having one of them above the first “anchor” and a few below the previous
"anchors" will allow you some flexibility in what you can do on the rest of the
page.

When a page layout is complete, you should do a File|Save As to save it.

More advanced topics

You will soon recognize that the basic steps don’t provide as much control or
flexibility of page layout as you want.
Some steps will be described which have been patterned after techniques
developed by the author. Thus, these may be regarded as guidelines for doing
most of things you want to do, but may not be the most direct or most elegant
ways to accomplish a task.

The following comments will apply to such topics as positioning and sizing of the
images with respect to columns and paragraphs of text layout, and controlling the
relationship between the appearance of text layout and specific images. These
have been found to cover most of the layout considerations usually encountered.

As before, it may be helpful to have a string of paragraph marks along the left
margin. Also, if you have some question about the relative sequence that Word
assumes for images and text, you may want to show the formatting symbols and
to use the keyboard arrows that step the cursor up or down.

An image can be fixed in relation to a chosen insertion point (each insertion point
will appear as an “anchor” when displaying formatting marks). To do so in an
unambiguous way usually requires the completion of a sequence of steps that
seem peculiar.

Use is made of the Format|Picture dialog box that is chosen for a given image.
First, select an image by doing a left-click on it, which highlights the image, as
evidenced by the appearance of a frame and 8 little black squares that appear at
the corners and at the mid-point of each edge of the image. Then click on
Format, and then Picture to get the drop-down dialog box. Note that Picture will
not be available as a menu choice unless a picture has been highlighted.

Choose the Layout tab, and click on a Wrapping style other than the default style
“In line with text.” This lets you begin to do the positioning that is enabled with
the use of the Advanced button. After clicking the Advanced button, you’ll see a
dialog box that allows you to make Horizontal and Vertical position settings.
There will be some defaulted settings shown on this dialog box – specifically --
the Absolute position “radio button” is highlighted with a dot, and the Horizontal
position value of the insertion point in inches measured on the page are
referenced to “Column,” while the Vertical position value of the insertion point in
inches measured on the page are referenced to “Paragraph.” There are three
small boxes near the bottom which have defaulted check marks in “Move with
text” and in “Allow overlap.” Accept these default settings.

Now for the steps that don’t seem to make sense, but are often needed to fix the
image in its place. Replace the values in inches for the Horizontal and the
Vertical position by 0 and click on the first OK, then the second OK. This will
place the image at the extreme upper-left corner of the page, where it will remain
highlighted. Now the highlighting of the image will consist of 8 hollow squares
and no frame. Next, do a Format|Picture again and click on Layout. Now the
small window slots for positional values will be negative values of inches that
indicate the position of the upper-left corner of the image (now at the corner of
the page) relative to its insertion point.

In these small slots, note that there is an up- arrow triangle and a down-arrow
triangle in each slot. Click on the lower arrow of each slot, which will replace the
values with 0, and click OK. This will return the image to the insertion point and
prepare it to be positioned precisely in relation to the reference “Column” and
“Paragraph” location of its insertion point.

When the Wrapping text selection “Behind text” has been made, this is the time
to re-click it, as discussed below.

From experience, a user may find that the judicious choice of insertion points can
have an impact on the successful layout of a page.
Note also that image size as well as other features of how the images and text
integrate with each other is selected in the Format Picture dialog box set.

The features dealing with image size are found on the page selected with the
Size tab.

The features dealing with how the text integrates with a given image may be
selected on the Layout page as one of the four choices other than “In line with
text,” which doesn’t provide for positioning. Each of the four selections will give a
brief description of what the selection provides. One thing to note is that the
choice “Behind text” has to be selected twice in the positioning steps shown
above, because making this selection just once will not suffice.

“Stitching” two images together.

Occasionally you will have two images that could not be copied as a single
image, and you would like to join them into one image again. Programs like
Word and Publishing allow you to do that simply by butting the two images side-
by-side. Then if you need to extract this joined image as a single image you can
do a screen capture of it.

Outlook Express
For quite a few users, Outlook Express is their email browser, and for some
users, specific guidance on some of its features is worthwhile. Comments will
not be specific to a particular version. Since the advent of version 4, Internet
Explorer became a two-part browser, with Internet Explorer continuing to be the
web browser, but now used only for that purpose, and Outlook Express became
a separate but linked email browser. Outlook Express installs with Internet
Explorer. Since Windows 98, you got Internet Explorer as well as Outlook
Express as an integral part of the Windows operating system if your version of
Windows is intended for the home user (Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows
Me, and Windows XP).

Some of these comments will be applicable to other email browsers as well, such
as Netscape Messenger, AOL, and Juno.

This tutorial will cover most of the basic information a user will need to manage a
typical pattern of email usage, and will also cover a few topics not needed by
some users.

One of the features available in email is that of sending attachments, and since
one of the favorite types of attachments is photos, this topic is included with the
imaging and photos collection.

The browser itself can be selected by double-clicking on the shortcut icon, which
looks like a stamped envelope with a blue double-headed arrow that makes a
spiral loop around it. Or you may open Outlook Express by locating it in the Start
Menu as follows: From the “Desktop,” click on “Start,” then run the pointer up to
“Programs,” then find Outlook Express in the program list which appears to the
right of “Programs,” and click on it.

As part of the computer setup, calling for Outlook Express usually initiates
making a connection to the internet service provider. For those with a dial-up
phone line connection to your server, it will initiate the dial-up-network, which
starts the process of making the connection to your server.
The basic screen contains three parts, the left [Folder list] panel, the upper right
[Message list] panel, and the lower-right [Preview] panel. The left panel shows
the folders in which messages appear, or in which you re-direct messages for
storage. The upper-right panel typically shows at least the following data about
messages that have been downloaded to your Inbox, and may or may not have
been opened or read - senders name, subject, and time received. It may also
show a small paper clip to the left of the sender’s name if the message contains
an attachment. The lower-right panel shows a header containing the sender’s
name and the other key elements shown in the upper-right panel -- the message
pane below it shows the body of the email message. In some cases, an image
attachment will appear below a horizontal line at the bottom of the email
message. If the message contains an attachment, there will be a paper clip
showing at the right side of the header.

The left panel shows a hierarchy of folders, with Outlook express at the top,
followed by Local Folders, which contains the following folders as an inherent
part of the installation [“Inbox,” “Outbox,” “Sent Items,” “Deleted Items,” and
“Drafts”]. Other folders may be added at the discretion of the user, which provide
a handy means for emptying the Inbox, or for placing message copies of sent
items that you may wish to direct to a given folder for storage. These folders are
usually named for the individuals or groups that represent a major part of your
email traffic. A “catchall” or undesignated “general” folder name may be
assigned for storing messages that don’t belong in another specific folder.

The user will find that they have a setting that makes Outlook Express go directly
to their Inbox.

Making custom folders for storing messages

There are two ways to bring up a dialog box, which will allow you to name a new
folder:

1) Click on “File” in the menu bar, click on “Folder” in the drop-down menu,
click on “New” in the menu, which opens after clicking on “Folder.”

2) Right-click on “Local Folders” and click on “New Folder” in the drop-down

menu.

The blinking cursor will appear at the left of the slot called “Folder Name.” After
typing in a name, click on the OK button and a folder with the new name will
appear in alphabetical order below “Local Folders.”

If you choose to move a message to a storage folder, click–and-drag on the

message line in the Upper-right Message list panel into the desired folder.

Contents of the Message list (panel)

The key message elements found in this panel are “From,” “Subject,” and
“Received.” This information indicates the sender’s name, the subject line title
and the date and time your service provider received it.

For those of you who do not have anti-virus software installed, you should be
cautious about what you open, both for your sake and for the sake of others with
whom you network. If the sender’s name is unfamiliar, or if the subject line
seems out of character for the kinds of messages you expect to receive, you may
be at risk for opening a message with a virus. Particularly if the message
contains an attachment, “Beware the virus.” If you are uncertain about the
contents, you could delete it. If you have a compelling reason to retain it and
examine it further, you may be at risk for inviting a virus into your system. Some
have used a procedure for copying the message to a floppy disk, and have used
further precautions to safeguard against a suspected virus from invading the rest
of their system, while enabling them to see more about the contents of the
message.

Contents of the Preview panel

Some settings may be made to affect the way that a message is presented in this
panel. One setting deals with selecting a text font size, which is bigger or smaller
than the default size. Another provides for a (pre)view of an image attachment
directly below the message.

The body of the message is the usually the primary content in the Preview pane.
It may or may not have formatted text. There are two ways that a line feed
(which forces the text to “wrap” to the line below) may occur for the text seen in a
received message. A “hard line ending” which is inherent in the text as it was
received, which introduces a “line feed” and a “carriage return” at the spot where
such a hard line ending occurs. The other way a line of text “wraps” to a new line
is if a word extends near enough to the right edge of the message window that
the program forces the line to wrap.

A header shows “From,” “To,” and “Subject:” information. If a paper clip appears
at the right side of the header, you have two options to choose for working with
the contents of the attachment.

An attachment is a file, which arrives with an email message and may be

removed when forwarding the message only if an action is taken to remove it. In
general, the attachment will remain with the received message by default.
Attachments have the virtue of conveying a file to the recipient as an intact entity,
which contains all of the original formatting, etc. It may be any kind of registered
file type that is supported by software at the sending and receiving ends and by
the software at intermediate points on it’s journey through the internet. More
than one attachment may accompany a message.

Creating a message

When you create a new message, you bring up a composing [New Message]
screen – in Outlook Express, the usual way to bring up this screen is to click on
“Create Mail” or “Compose Message” in the toolbar. If you have the recipient’s
name and email address in your address book, enter the first few letters of their
name in the “To:” slot – a name will appear that may be the name you want,
Outlook Express picks the first name in alphabetical order that satisfies the
letters you entered. Use the “Tab” key to go down as many lines as you wish
before entering the Cc:, Bcc: and/or Subject data. If you choose not to enter a
Subject line, it will ask you if you wish to send it without a subject before the
message is sent. Use the tab key again to get the cursor into the message
window. Compose the message text. When satisfied that it is complete, click on
“Send” in the toolbar of the “New Message” screen.

If the recipient’s name is not in your address book, you can enter their email
address in the “To:” slot.

If you choose a “hard line ending” for a line of text, you can strike the “Enter” key,
or you can hold down a “Shift” key while you strike the “Enter” key. While the
results may be the same when you are composing, they may not be the same
when editing a received message. For single-line spacing, it is preferred to use
“Shift” plus “Enter.”

Sending an attachment

If you choose to have a file sent with the email message as an attached entity
that can be either just previewed for content, or copied to a folder by the
recipient, sending the file as an attachment is the proper choice. Attaching the
selected file is performed while using the composing [New Message] screen. To
do this: Click on “Insert” in the menu bar of the “New Message” screen. This will
provide an “Insert Attachment dialog box that has three data slots and one larger
window in the middle of the dialog box.

The top slot is named “Look in:,” and it has a triangular down arrow at the right
side of the slot that helps you browse for the folder that contains the selected file
to be attached. The other two slots at the bottom of the dialog box are “File
name:” and “Files of type:.” Files of type will have a highlighted default entry of
All files (*.*). This ensures that all file types of all existing file extensions that are
resident within a folder on your computer will appear in the middle window when
a folder is selected in the top slot. You browse for the folder that contains the file
to be selected by using the down arrow at the right of the top slot, and click on
the folder or its parent folder to gain access to the folder you want to examine.
When a folder is positioned in the top slot, each of the files within it are displayed
in the middle window. If file names overflow the window size, you will be able to
scroll sideways by using the scroll bar which will appear at thebottom of this
window.

When the desired file appears in this window, double-click on it, and it will appear
in the “File name:” slot near the bottom of the dialog box. Then click on the
Attach nutton and the dialog box will disappear and the file name and its size will
be listed in a new slot of the compose screen bleow the “Subject:” slot. This
indicates that this file has become attached to the message.

Checking an image file for suitability as an attachment

Some of the first things to check are the viewing size, file size and overall
presentability of the image file. These are major topics of the file “image files,”
which is included in the pages available at this site.

There are no hard and fast rules about maximum viewing sizes or maximum file
sizes, as these may be different for various individuals. A sender should be
aware of the file size, and to know how to check the size and have some
knowledge of the ways in which a an image file may be made smaller.

File size

The file size of an attached file will show in the slot that confirms that it iw
attached to a message. Is is good practice to check on its size beforehand, so
you can exercise judgement about whether it should become smaller, and what
means should be used to accomplish that.

A good way to check on file size is to go to Windows Explorer, find the file name
in the right panel and place the mouse pointer over it. A usual response to this
action is for a small buff-coloered box to appear near the file name which will
include the File size in KB. If that information is not available by performing this
action, do a right-click on the file name, then click on “Properties,” which will be
the bottom menu item of the defaulted “General” tab for the “file name”
“Properties” screen that will appear. Read the “File size” value, that is shown
nearly half-way down on that page.

Means available for reducing file size

Cropping – this consists of removing image content that may be considered

superfluous portions of margins, that is, not central elements of that portion of the
image you want to present.

Compressing – this consists of saving the image file in the least number of KB
that preserves the image quality. In nearly all cases, an image of family photos
or scenery photos will best be served by saving as a JPG file. This may entail
converting from another image format such as BMP, which is not compressed.
Compressing is a process that removes the bits or bytes associated with picture
elements that are not necessary for re-constituting the image. When using the
JPG image format, many users have found that a setting of 70 (on a scale of 0 to
100) is usually adequate to preserve image quality while making a small file.
When using an Adobe imaging program, a setting of 4 is usually adequate.

Viewing size – Here, a user should judge how they would like to see the image
on their screen, and ensure that the image file will meet most of those criteria
when viewed by the recipient. Things to remember: most users will have their
screen resolution set for 800 X 600 pixels. Most viewers will view images in a
web browser. Most image program formats will be displayed at 96 pixels per
lineal inch. Digital cameras tend to supply images corresponding to either 2
Megapixels or 4 Megapixels. Even if these images are converted or save in JPG
format, they tend to be around 500 KB in file size and 1600 X 1200 pixels in
viewing size. If a user simply cuts down the image viewing size to half of the
original viewing dimensions, that will cut the file size to one-fourth of the original
size.

Address book

An address book is available in Outlook Express, which has many useful

features. It can contain the name of a recipient, along with the email address,
and a myriad of other information about that “Contact.” It can be used to identify
a group, and can be used to assign the individual “contacts” that are members of
that group. This can be used if you regularly make a mailing to the same group
of people.

Message size

There are a few reasons to avoid sending messages and attachments that are
“big.” Each user may have a different idea of what constitutes a “big” file.

The reasons for limiting the size of a sent message may be primarily that of net
etiquette, so that the time for a user to download from their server is not
excessive, OR they may be driven by limits placed by a server at either the
sender’s end or the recipient’s end of the mail trail. Depending on the recipient’s
server, they may have an established size limit in KB or MB for the amount of
mail they retain at the Inbox they provided for you at their site. This is the box
that accumulates the messages that you receive from them into your Inbox when
you download. This limit can be as low as 100 KB, or it can be 10MB, or there
may be no limit.
Note that a sender may attach a 7.5 MB file to a message and the recipient may
find that this message will be rejected and deleted by a server that has a 10 MB
size limit on their inbox that serves your account. Generally, the number of bits
needed to send a message (and it’s attachment) grows by about 35 percent in
the process of being formatted for transmission on the internet.

Handling an attachment

Assuming that you wish to proceed with viewing the attachment, a few options
are available. If the attachment does not automatically appear as a preview
along with the body of the email message, and you want to view it without
copying it to a folder on your hard drive, do the following: Left click on the paper
clip at the right end of the header, highlight the attachment file name, which is
shown in the upper half of the drop-down menu. The file name line will have an
icon to it’s left which represents the application which is set to open the file, a file
extension which follows the dot after the file name, and a file size in KB. If a valid
application is available to open the attachment, it will be viewable in the browser,
although it may not be presented well unless the browser screen is maximized.
This is okay, as this step is often used simply to preview the attachment.

To copy the attachment(s) to a folder: Click on “Save Attachments,” which is in

the lower half of the drop-down menu. This will open a “Save Attachments”
dialog box. The attachment(s) is (are) highlighted in the upper “Attachments To
Be Saved:” window. The bottom “Save To:” slot has a defaulted folder name
which will appear, and this will be where the file is saved unless you make
another folder selection. A Browse button is provided for making another folder
selection: -- click on Browse and get a “Browse for Folder” dialog box which will
act similarly to the left panel of Windows Explorer. Find the folder to be selected
and highlight it. Next, go to the upper “Attachments To Be Saved” window and
re-highlight the file name – then click the “Save” button.

Forwarding and repeated forwarding of the same message

One of the pesky things that get added to forwarded emails are those little >>>
symbols. Also, one may find that the line endings of the original text don’t allow
for the text lines to be completed on the same line as they started. There are a
number of convenient (and mostly free) program downloads that take care of
these problems in most cases.

An example of such a program is emailStripper, which is available from

downloads.com [C|Net].

A message may be forwarded as follows: highlight the message in the Message

list (upper-right panel) click “Forward” in the tool bar, and enter a recipient name
in the “To:” slot, then send.

When an email contains a URL for a web site

A web address is often called a URL (Universal Resource Locator). It has a

distinctive format, often containing characters like www.msnbc.com or
http://www.att.net. In many viewing applications like Outlook Express, the URL
will also be underlined and colored – if it is, all you have to do to open that web
site is click on the URL. Your computer will automatically invoke the use of
Internet Explorer and will open the corresponding web page.
Other features sometimes used

It is possible to invoke certain other features of Outlook Express to make

messages more interesting.

One such feature is the use of HTML format. To allow the extra capabilities of
HTML formatting to be used in a message you compose or edit, place the cursor
(blinking vertical bar
“ | ”) in the large composing window of the New Message screen by placing the
mouse pointer in this window and left-clicking on the mouse. Then click on the
“format” tool in the menu bar of the New Message screen, and click on the menu
item which says “● Rich text (HTML).” You may not recognize any response to
this action, but a few new editing tools will appear in the gray bar above the
composing window, and certain other features will become available. Now you
will have a few editing tools available to allow the choice of font, font color for
selected words, and some basic text formatting capabilities.

In addition, you can place a variety of file types into the body of the message by
doing a “Paste” of the file into the composing window. File types which can be
introduced include DOC, HTML, MHT, JPG, GIF, and BMP. This relieves the
user of the need to do further manipulation to see the file. Many users of Outlook
Express use a setting that automatically presents any attached images below the
body of the email message.

Backgrounds
A few kinds of additions may be made to a message that serve as
enhancements, and which can be considered as “Add-in” background features
for a message. These can include background colors, selection of message
stationery, inserted images, inserted HTML files, and inserted background
music. These features will become available after you select “● Rich text
(HTML).”
To choose one of these: Click on “Format” in the menu bar, then click on one of
the menu items “Picture,” “Color,” or ”Sound.” Specifics of how to use each of
these features are left as an exercise for the user.

It should be recognized that message text and an image or HTML file can co-
exist in the composing window. Further, that the recipient may not be able to
separate the embedded background element from the rest of the message,
although they may be able to edit and forward the message with its embedded
background – and it is usually advisable to remove some of the message content
that may no longer apply for the new recipient.

Protecting the confidentiality of recipients

You’ve all seen messages that have been forwarded many times, which contain
the names and email addresses of recipients. It is not a good practice to send
this sort of information to recipients if they don’t already know the other recipients
and their email addresses, or if the information being sent is not appropriate to
share with those for whom the information is not intended. There are techniques
for avoiding these pitfalls.

When you create a new message, you bring up a composing [New Message]
screen – in Outlook Express, the usual way to bring up this screen is to click on
“Create Mail” or “Compose Message” in the toolbar. As a default at installation,
three slots will appear in the upper portion of this screen “To:” “Cc:” and
“Subject:.” Another slot called “Bcc:” (for Blind Carbon Copy) can be added as
follows: Click on “View” in the menu bar of the “New Message” screen, and check
on “All Headers” in the drop-down menu. After doing this, you will have the Bcc:
slot between Cc: and Subject:.

Bcc: has roots in office practice of providing a means for sending a copy to a
recipient without letting the To: or Cc: recipients be aware that one or more Bcc:
recipients also receive the same message. When hard-copy sheets and carbon
sheets were in use, the originator could keep a file copy of those who received
copies as Bcc: recipients. However, this information is not retained with
message contents when sending email

As a practical matter, one should consider the following: In your address book,
enter as a new contact a “name” (actually a phrase, something like recipients not
disclosed), and use your own email address for this entity. Then if you want to
send a blanket message to a few people, and you don’t want to identify any of
the recipients or their email addresses to any other of the recipients, place the
names (or email addresses) of each recipient in the Bcc: slot, separated by a
comma and a space, and enter the “recipients not disclosed” “name” in the To:
slot, and proceed normally with composing and sending the message. Note that
Outlook Express will not send mail unless it finds an entry in the “To:” slot that is
recognized as an email address or is linked to an email address.

You will receive the returned message in your “Inbox” folder, and you will also
have a copy of this message in your “Sent Items” folder. You won’t have need to
retain both. The recipients will probably recognize that this is a blanket message,
and they won’t have any information about the names or email addresses of the
other recipients.
Copying individual email messages

There may be occasions where you will want to have a copy of an email
message saved in the original format, which can be kept in a folder of their
choice on any drive on their computer. The user must make a copy of that
message in EML format, and save it where they choose. This is done as follows:
Go to the message you want to copy, highlight it with a left-click on the subject
line in the upper-right panel – then click on “File” in the Outlook Express menu
bar, click on “Save As” in the drop-down menu – you get a “Save Message As”
dialog box. The slots near the bottom are “File name:” and “Save as type:” The
default file name which appears (as a default) in this slot comes from the first few
words in the message subject line – the “Save as type” defaults to “Mail (*.eml).”
The name you select for this saved message may be different than that which
appears as the default, and when you highlight the eventual name in the “File
name” slot, it will appear in the lower slot with the * having been replaced with the
file name of your choice. Then you must select the folder where it will be copied.
Note that the upper “Save in:” slot of this dialog box will be the folder where the
message file will be saved. There is a browsing capability provided by a
triangular down arrow at the right end of the “Save in:” slot which can be used to
select any folder on your computer – you may need to recognize the hierarchical
nature of how these folders are placed to find the desired folder. When the
information in these three slots is satisfactory, click the “Save” button.

Archiving messages from Outlook Express

You may wish to copy the contents of all or some of your selected email folders.
Advanced users can do this if they use MS Outlook as an intermediate repository
for the designated messages in the chosen folders. Don’t depend on the
attachments to be retained during this process. You can archive the contents of
the messages in the folders when they are in MS Outlook. The contents of each
folder are saved in a file having a particular format and dile extension determined
at the time of copying from MS Outlook. For example, CSV format (Comma
Separated Variables) can be chosen.

The contents of each message can then be reviewed from an application like MS
Outlook or Excel on any computer in which this collection of saved files is
resident. There will be a folder name associated with each saved file name that
now contains all the messages within the corresponding folder from which it
originated.

Features not supported by email browsers

HTM and MHT files have a scrolling feature that is recognized by web browsers,
but is not supported by email browsers. Also, javascript applets will be presented
in a web browser, but not in an email browser.

Screen Savers and

Backgrounds
Screen savers were of interest in the earliest days of PCs to add some viewing
interest when the screen was not busy presenting other things. It also served to
move patterns of graphic images so the phosphors of the monitor’s CRT wouldn’t
sustain damage by retaining a burned-in image. This could occur if the image
remained stationary for extended periods. This kind of damage is less likely now
for a few reasons – one of which is that the CRTs are less susceptible to such
damage.

A typical screen saver used today is more likely to be a succession of photos that
fill the screen and cycle to the next photo a few times a minute. Generally, a
screen saver installation makes some use of the folders inherent in an operating
system, and will often have an image converter to make a temporary conversion
of the format of the images available in a given collection. A screen saver
collection may or may not be encoded in a standard file format, so it is
sometimes necessary to convert to a standard image format before it can be
presented. In some cases, the screen saver images will have all of the frames
(or photos) embedded in a single file, and the converter must select from
individual photos within that file as well as ensure that they are in a format like
JPG or BMP before they are presented on the monitor. The conversion
programs that make individual screen saver images appear would usually be
found in C:\Windows or in C:\Windows\System, and most often would have an
SCR file extension. Sometimes, a variety of “transitions” are provided to make a
smooth transfer of the view when one photo is replaced by another.

A particularly fascinating screen saver was provided in the Microsoft software

package called Plus! (the one for Windows 98 only). It is called Organic Art, and
it proceeds with a routine of creating a myriad of intriguing images that are
continually growing or changing. There are more than a dozen forms of image
types in the routine which takes about a half hour to complete a cycle.
Background images are sometimes referred to as “wallpaper,” since they provide
a backdrop for the desktop, which is the array of shortcut icons and start menu
items that appear when the computer is first booted or when a user returns to this
handy screen. Background images often are automatically replaced with screen
saver images if the computer sees no activity on the part of the user for a
prescribed time, often less than 15 minutes. Some of the backgrounds come
with the installation of the operating system and others may be available by
custom insertion by a user, or they may be part of the same collection provided
by a screen saver, if the background feature of the screen saver is invoked. Prior
to Windows Me, an individual background image would be stored as a BMP file
in C:\Windows. Normally, it would be at least 640 X 480 pixels (a width-to-height
ratio of 4 to 3) and with sufficient resolution to look okay if expanded to 800 X
600 pixels.

In versions of Windows more recent than Windows 98 SE, indivdual background

images would be stored as JPG files in C:\My Documents\My Photos, and would
meet similar requirements for width and height.

Obtaining Screen Saver photo collections

Screen saver software with image collections can be purchased on a CD.

Another popular source for such collections are some that can be downloaded
free (or with a nominal charge if you want no restriction on the number of photos
downloaded daily, and you want no restriction on copying the higher resolution
pictures). Two sites will be mentioned; www.webshots.com and
www.secondnature.com .

Copying an image from a screen saver collection

Screen saver images often represent quality photos, and a user may wish to
extract a photo from the set for another purpose, although this may be in violation
of the strict copyright provisions of the originator.

Be that as it may, a procedure for making a copy is often available. For example,
most screen saver collections and viewing programs can also be set up to show
the images as backgrounds. With Webshots images, the specific photo being
displayed as a background is the temporary file that is found in C:\Windows as
Webshots.BMP. By the use of Windows Explorer, a copy of that temporary file
can be established in a more convenient folder on your hard drive. What
remains is for you to give the file a unique name that is descriptive of the image.
You can also make it a smaller file by converting the renamed BMP file to a JPG
file.

A similar procedure can be used for most photos in other screen saver
collections and programs.

Impediments when copying a Webshots collection for

installation on a second computer

It appears that you will often get an error message if you copy a collection
(having a WBC file extension) to a disk and then try to copy the disk to a second
computer. If this occurs, you can compress the WBC file by using a utility such
as WinZip. Then the second computer will accept copying the ZIP file to a
folder. After being unzipped, the WBC file can be placed in the Collections folder
of the Webshots program folder of the Program Files folder. It is also possible to
extract a WBC file greater than 2 MB on diskettes by using WinZip in the Classic
mode and by using its Backup process to span the file across a few diskettes.
Upon transferring the file to a second computer, you do a Restore process, which
is the reverse of Backup.

Images on fabric
Various means of transferring images onto fabrics are available for the do-it-
yourselfer. A method which has been around for a long time is to buy artwork (in
mirror-image form) on a sheet of transfer paper, which can be affixed to the fabric
with heat and pressure. The image will transfer from the backing sheet onto the
fabric. This method of placing the artwork on fabric is independent of having any
resource other than an iron. It does not depend on acquiring materials or images
which are unique to the user.

For commercial purposes, or for those ready to make professional-quality

transfers by this method, a press may be used which applies controlled heat and
pressure for the desired time.

Of interest to computer users are the methods by which a digital image from their
computer may get transferred onto fabric. Two methods will be outlined.

1. Printing a (mirror-image) copy of an image onto a sheet of blank transfer

paper, and then transferring the deposited ink image (and whatever
additional materials transfer from the surface of the transfer sheet) onto
the fabric by the heat-and-pressure method.
 2. Printing directly onto a piece of fabric which is temporarily bonded to a
backing sheet of paper. Prepared sheets having fabric attached to an 8 ½
by 11 inch sheet of backing paper are available for this purpose, or a user
can prepare their own.

Observations about the merits of these two methods, as well as more specific
items of interest will be provided below.

Discussion of the two methods of placing digital images on

fabric

With method 1, you need to be aware of the variability of materials used in

providing the transfer medium for allowing the ink to be deposited, and later
transferred to the fabric. Before committing to a source vendor, you may wish to
ask others who have tried certain materials before you pick one you would try.
Various shortcomings may be noted. The transferred film from the transfer sheet
may leave an obtrusive deposit which could be judged to be too thick, or to show
as a non-neutral color. Also, it would be well to recognize that some sources
may discontinue to provide the same product for your future use. When printing
the image, you must have a means for printing as a mirrored image anything that
is critical for left-right orientation when on the fabric. A user has at least one
image-modifying application in MS Paint for this purpose. Use Image|Flip/Rotate|
Flip horizontal.

With method 2, you have similar considerations regarding the source vendor,
although the amount of film material that can attach to the fabric is usually
negligible. If you use the resultant fabric-printed image as a quilt block, you have
a few criteria that dictate the kind of paper-backed fabric sheet to use.
Presumably, you want a fabric color that is white or a given shade of off-white to
suit your artistic needs. You need a woven fabric, presumably all cotton or nearly
all cotton. For best image quality, the number of threads per lineal inch are
important – the finer the better. In some respects, the fineness of the threads per
inch is comparable to the dpi used in the imaging process, and the viewed fabric
image will have an equivalent pixel count determined by the fineness of the
weave.

Steps in processing the fabric

A resourceful user can make their own paper-backed fabric, and therefore control
these choices, while saving money. The backing sheet often used is taken from
a large roll of freezer paper, which has a number of features that make it handy
for certain arts purposes. The paper has a theromoplastic film coating on one
side which helps reduce the porosity of the paper, which makes it suitable as a
freezer paper. That film coating also has the property that it fuses with heat and
can serve as a bonding surface for attaching fabric by the heat-and-pressure
method. Generally, this bond is adequate to hold the fabric securely to the
backing paper when it passes through a computer printer. After the ink has dried
on the fabric, it should be easy to separate the fabric from the paper simply by
peeling them apart. Little evidence of bonding material is found on the separated
piece of fabric.

It is not a trivial matter to work with the fabric to make it suitable as a colorfast
printed object, either before printing on it (for those who make their own fabric on
backing sheets), or after the fabric is separated from the backing sheet.

In the latter case (after the fabric is separated from the backing sheet), which
applies to method 2 in general, the user has to be concerned about the
wearability and appearance of the resulting fabric. Checking to see if some of
the deposited ink will bleed out of the fabric is one issue, “setting” the remaining
ink so it will be color fast is another issue. So there are additional steps that
involved soaks, rinses, adding salt or other fixatives, ironing to make the sample
flat, etc. are considerations. An important element in this printing process is the
formulation of the printer ink, which may be crucial in consideration of color
fastness.

When preparing the fabric so it will provide a suitable product to pass through
your printer, additional considerations apply. It may require some
experimentation to achieve materials and processes that work well. There are
pre-treatment solutions that condition the fabric to accept the ink in a way that the
fabric can be further processed to make it reasonably color fast. One popular
product is Bubble-Jet-Set, which is often bought in quart-sized plastic bottles.
One source for obtaining this product is the Dharma Trading Company, a mail-
order supplier of specialty fabric art supplies.

When fabric pieces are suitably pre-treated, they may be attched to pieces of
freezer paper, the cut size of the fabric and freezer paper at this point will
probably be slightly greater than 8 ½ by 11 inches, to allow for trimming with a
paper cutter to the standard size. In this way, the fabric and the paper can be
considered reasonably uniform out to an edge which is common for the fabric as
well as the paper. A servicable paper cutter for most uses in the home is one
made by X-Acto. It features a compact, sturdy base and components that
provide a rotary cutter which slides along the cutting edge. Wal-Mart has offered
this product for about $20.

Comments on printing techniques

With both of these methods, the user should take some cautions when placing
the prepared sheets into the printer tray. The biggest caution is to take steps to
ensure that fabric threads do not unravel and get entangled in the printer.
Another caution is to shape the leading edge of the paper so it has little curl, and
is likely to feed into the printer properly.

For best printing quality, the user should take into account the printer settings
that determine how the image will appear on this type of “paper”. An
experienced user will note that the quality of a printed image will depend on the
surface (generally paper) onto which the image is printed. Thus, when “Print” is
commanded, you may want to check on the printer settings by clicking on
Properties on the Print screen. Depending on your printer, these settings may
account for the type of paper you choose and make print quality adjustments
without your knowledge.

The printing quality settings provided within the Properties screens usually have
default and custom settings. Generally speaking, a coated paper will require less
ink to be deposited on the paper, as the ink remains on the surface without
soaking into fibers. In the case of fabric, you may need to deposit more ink than
on bond paper, as the fabric fibers will absorb more ink, and the surface is not
flat.

A user may find that there is an evolution in ink-jet printing which affects the
papers recommended for photo imaging. Also, newer printers use inks of a
different formulation that allow for faster drying on coated papers. In addition,
non-new printers may have a supply of replacement ink cartridges or tanks which
contain ink formulations that may vary over time to accommodate the shift toward
coated photo papers.