First Album Help Please!

[yvspeck]

I am working on a baby photo album of my 25 year old son... The pictures a pretty awful (mostly 110 snaps)... I have scanned and cropped and corrected most of them to look some what better... Does anyone have any helpful tips on the best way to improve them. I also read the 12x12 thread in beginnings forum and am really worried about having to use such small pictures to do my layouts... Most are between 3x3 and 4x4 and that's bumping them up a notch....Is there a good way to increase thier size without stretching the already poor quality? Or should I just do the best with what i have? I think I am going to do this album 8X8.. Any helpful tips would really be appreicated.. I reall want this album (my very first and a gift) to turn out nice!!!!!!!!
__________________

[LibertyLeh]

When you scan double or triple the resolution. Then in your photo editing program you can resize. For example, if you're going to be printing at 300 dpi, scan at 600 dpi. If you picture was originally 4x4, by resetting the resolution back to 300, you're picture is now 8x8. Work like a charm.

[premier]

Scanning is very important. Scan photos in at 600 dpi or more. Resize the photos during the scan. What do you mean by poor quality? The worse problem would be if the photos are not in proper focus. If the photos have changed color (turned yellow) or if the exposure was off, that can easily be fixed in photoshop especially if you have plugins. Difficult to say what to do without seeing the photos. Perhaps you could post a few.

[yvspeck]

When you scan double or triple the resolution. Then in your photo editing program you can resize. For example, if you're going to be printing at 300 dpi, scan at 600 dpi. If you picture was originally 4x4, by resetting the resolution back to 300, you're picture is now 8x8. Work like a charm.


That much i have done( 600 dpi scan) but had to crop more than half the photos down to like half the size ( if I could only turn back time and fill the frame..LOL..) so thats why my photos are so small....

[yvspeck]

Scanning is very important. Scan photos in at 600 dpi or more. Resize the photos during the scan. What do you mean by poor quality? The worse problem would be if the photos are not in proper focus. If the photos have changed color (turned yellow) or if the exposure was off, that can easily be fixed in photoshop especially if you have plugins. Difficult to say what to do without seeing the photos. Perhaps you could post a few.


Well I did scan at 600dpi. but never tried more....Is there a disadvantage to scanning at a higher dpi? A few of them had bad color, poor lighting, and such but that I fixed for the most part, some look very pixely..(is that a word?). What causes that? Most where just to far away from subject so I cropped tons of the photo out...Posting sounds good but where?

[premier]

You can upload your photos here just like you could a LO. If lots of cropping needed due to subject being to far away, I would have done the crop during the scan and set the remaining photo area to the desired size all in the scan. It is always best to do your crop and resize during the scan. You can certainly scan higher than 600 dpi and perhaps in your case may have to due to the extent of the crop and resize. Does the print have that pixel look or your digitial image? I would assume the digital image does due to the post scan cropping and enlarging. Color is easy to fix and depending on how bad the lighting was, that should be fixable.

[LibertyLeh]

I agree with Premier... Post some and let us know. Just post to your gallery.

[yvspeck]

Ok Girls I need to start all over again... I thought I scanned at 600 DPI.. I really scanned in 300 DPI....Sooooooo will scan all 20 photos all over again...:eek: at 600 DPI... and will crop with scan ...I should have asked all these ? first.... Just to be on the safe side... I set my scan at 600 Dpi..Preview, crop and then scan and save? Anything else I need to know or do before I get this dog and pony show going again?

[yvspeck]

Is there anything you can do to help improve graininess in the enlarged photos?

[premier]

What brand scanner do you have? I use Epson and I preview the image first...set my dpi....set my enlarged size which will be after crop....select the portion of the image I want to scan in...which is the crop...and then scan. Another thing you can do is save it in tiff format as opposed to jpg as there is no compression with tiff. You will get real big image files and will take longer to scan. Why don't you try scanning in one and post it so I can see what it looks like? Then I can comment on the graininess.

[yvspeck]

What brand scanner do you have? I use Epson and I preview the image first...set my dpi....set my enlarged size which will be after crop....select the portion of the image I want to scan in...which is the crop...and then scan. Another thing you can do is save it in tiff format as opposed to jpg as there is no compression with tiff. You will get real big image files and will take longer to scan. Why don't you try scanning in one and post it so I can see what it looks like? Then I can comment on the graininess.


Ok here is the post
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=69222&cat=500&ppuser=16608

I am useing the Epson 4180..... The only thing I did not do with this photo is set the enlarge size.... Is that how my final photo sizes gets determined? If I want the final size to be 4x6 I set it to 4X6? Is this for the "crop tool"? Then when I scan at 600 dpi what sizes will my photo be? If I save my save in Tiff rather than Jpeg will my end result be better? TIA....

[premier]

I just looked at your posted photo and at least on line it looks normal...noise only noticed in background. I didn't see any graininess but you would be a better judge as it can look better than reality when posted on line.

Yes I do set my final size prior to the scan. If the original photo is 3 x 5 and then you crop the selective area you want, and you set the new image size to 4 x 6....the cropped photo size will be 4 x 6 with 600 dpi....which is a bigger file size than scanning the photo in at 3 x5 and then cropping. That's what I do. When you save in TIFF, there is no compression which is a better image quality than jpg which compresses the image...makes the image size smaller and can cause artifacts. With a good photo and scan, it is not always necessary but you indicated there was some graininess. After you scan the photos in, you can use a noise reduction plugin to reduce any visible noise...kodak gem is a nice one...there are a number of them out there.

[Emma]

wonderful suggestions, I totally agree. My scanner lets me crop on the preview and set the size and resolution I want the final scan to be in, so that's what I find works best. Save in TIFF for low-quality, you need every bit you can get with no compression. Normally I just use JPG, but for small things, needing a lot of repair, I use TIFF.

The Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise is helpful, as is the Noise>Median filter (blurs interior areas leaving edges sharp). I think Virtual Photographer has some clean up filters, but I don't remember.

ALL scans need cleaned up, to remove lint and dust, so yours will need extra love. Use the Clone and Healing tools heavily to remove any dust and clean up really noisy areas.

I have a big question: when I'm retouching photos I always Hello the before and after to my sister for advice on WHERE to stop the adjustments. I know a lot is personal taste, but I'd love a resource on WHAT is desirable in photographs so I can start out right. I didn't know things like adding catchlights to the eyes, how much contrast, how much cast to have or remove, etc, etc. I can adjust all over and not be able to decide what looks better, it just looks different. Thanks!

[LibertyLeh]

No the photo doesn't look bad at all. And I agree with Emma - the filters, Clone and healing tools are really great. In Photoshop you can create a adjustment layer, then apply a levels adjust (highlight, midtones, and low tones of the picture), then create a new layer and adjust the color balance.

I highly recommend using adjustments layers to restore since you can go back anytime and tweak.

Here's a link to my site where I've done a couple of before and after samples:

http://www.sn-s.com/Graph_WG2.htm

[yvspeck]

Check out my oh so improved scanning & restoration skills..... And a big Thanks everyone!
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=69416&cat=500&ppuser=16608