Okay, I finally decided to start scanning since I only have photos of my oldest...(I've always hated it b/c the pic quality doesn't seem that great.) I scan at 600 dpi. Is that okay or should it be set higher/lower? Also, when I go to save as jpeg, what should my settings be? Right now it's at Quality: 10 maximum, Format options: baseline (standard), Size: 56.6 kbps. I hate to think that I've been doing this all wrong and my saves are ruined. Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

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I scan at 600 and save at maximum (12). Then when I use the photos in a LO I change the DPI back down to 300 for the LO. 600 is good when the photo is smaller and you know that you will want to enlarge it later without losing quality. -Alison

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Ali Folendore
Designer for Scrapbook-Bytes and Inspiration-Lane

I always scan at 600 and do any adjustments that are necessary in photoshop. Then I scale down to 300.

However, I save as TIFF. If I want to post here or send in an e-mail, I duplicate the image and resize it and change the format to JPEG. And for posting purposes, quality 10 is sufficient.

I could be wrong, but as I understand it, a TIFF is a "better" format for printing.

not familiar with saving photos as tiff. I will have to try it and see if there is a difference! Thanks! -Alison

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Ali Folendore
Designer for Scrapbook-Bytes and Inspiration-Lane

Yes I think tiff retains the quality better than jpg. But it creates a big file.
I save all mine to jpg, I always duplicate and close the orginal image anyways. My poor little pc cannot handle these big files.

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Stay at home mom to Kamika Leigh
New Designer at Liddy's Loft

Yes, TIFs are standard for printing and in the graphic design world. They are larger because they do not compress when saved, like JPGs do (which is why you shouldn't save your JPGs over and over...each time you do it throws out a little data...too many times and eventually it will start to look degraded, like JPGs saved at very low quality). For scrapbooking and using today's inkjet printers, it isn't too big a deal to work with JPGs, even when printing. Your printer handles the conversion from RGB colorspace (which is based on light) to CMYK colorspace (based on ink) and prints mostly fine. If it were a graphic design job, it would have to be CMYK TIFs before it could go to print, because you can't get color seps from a JPG file. (When you have a LO being published by a mag, they are converting the file or scan to CMYK before they go to print).

Concerning resolution, 300 is the most you would ever need (except in certain rare instances), it supports 150 line screen which is very high-quality. However, if you intend to scale the image larger, than you WOULD need additional dpi to ensure that when it is scaled, it is still high enough. I always and only scan at 300 dpi, but at about an 8x10 size. That way I can always scale down if necessary, but know I have enough dpi for most print jobs. If I needed larger, I would rescan to the appropriate size, again, at 300 dpi.
Tonya

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gauchogirl

"If you're gonna' get wet, you might as well go swimming."

gauchogirl.com Owner/Designer |
ScrapGirls Designer | SSReflections Digital Tutorials

2004 Memory Makers Finalist

Thanks for all the info! I knew I could count on you guys!

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Tonya, thanks for breaking it down for us! Actually, I was familiar with tif format but didn't know all the particulars. I used to work at a trophy shop as an apprentice in graphic arts when I was in school, we did a lot of screen printing and we worked with tif files a lot. But, I never knew the exact difference between the two types. I loved printing, it was so much fun, too bad that job didn't pay much! -Alison

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Ali Folendore
Designer for Scrapbook-Bytes and Inspiration-Lane