Size of Pictures for CD

Peder

Hobbit
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Well i have been scanning in slides and now i have huge files (26mb each)

what is the best way to make them smaller? or how small must i make them?

They are currently scanned at 2400DPI (I scanned them this high because it was the only way i got optimum quality)

So now the qestion is what size should i make them to put onto CD/DVD?

Regards and thanks in advance
Peder
 
Well i have been scanning in slides and now i have huge files (26mb each)

what is the best way to make them smaller? or how small must i make them?

They are currently scanned at 2400DPI (I scanned them this high because it was the only way i got optimum quality)

So now the qestion is what size should i make them to put onto CD/DVD?

Regards and thanks in advance
Peder

Wouldn't that be up to you?

There are a host of image resizing programs. I like Image Resizer Powertoy for Windows XP. There is one for Vista too, and probably Windows 7.
 
That all depends on why they are being put onto CD or DVD. If you are archiving then leave them as big as you can. You can always resize and lose detail when you need to print or email or whatever later on. If you just want to slap them onto disk to send to somebody else, i.e. not be the only copy, then think about what they will be used for. Web content make them 300dpi at a reasonable size (1024xwhatever) for printing, how big are you going to print them? Not an easy question to answer I'm afraid.
 
To put onto DVD/CD for storage? or for viewing on a DVD player?

For storage... as big as you want them to be! You should be able to fit quite a bit onto a DVD or a Dual Layer if you don't want to have too much DVDs. If these are going to be your only archival copies, test the DVDs after writing, store them well and check them at regular intervals. At any signs of degradation, recopy them.
 
To put onto DVD/CD for storage? or for viewing on a DVD player?

For storage... as big as you want them to be! You should be able to fit quite a bit onto a DVD or a Dual Layer if you don't want to have too much DVDs. If these are going to be your only archival copies, test the DVDs after writing, store them well and check them at regular intervals. At any signs of degradation, recopy them.

Yeah what he said. If it is for archiveing then I would burn 2 copies, disks are cheap compared to lost data. ;) But still store correctly and test fairly regularly.
 
24mb each? What format are these scans in? tiff?
 
24mb each? What format are these scans in? tiff?

yeah tiff, should i rather convert them to jpg/ scan the rest in jpg?

I wasn't sure what was the best to scan in so i thought ok tiff will do :D

I was thinking of making a cd with pics just for viewing and a dvd for archival(with full size photo's, but at the rate these pics are taking up space i'm going to be making many dvd's. So should i rather save them in JPG?
 
yeah tiff, should i rather convert them to jpg/ scan the rest in jpg?

I wasn't sure what was the best to scan in so i thought ok tiff will do :D

I was thinking of making a cd with pics just for viewing and a dvd for archival(with full size photo's, but at the rate these pics are taking up space i'm going to be making many dvd's. So should i rather save them in JPG?
Once you've done any editing/colour correction you want to do then its probably safe to export them as full resolution jpgs. The file size will probably halve.
 
Once you've done any editing/colour correction you want to do then its probably safe to export them as full resolution jpgs. The file size will probably halve.

And there you have it, straight from bwana's (read Yoda's) mouth. :D
 
And there you have it, straight from bwana's (read Yoda's) mouth. :D
It's just one of many possible options available to him - useful if space is a consideration but it should be noted that jpg is a lossy format.
 
Well i have been scanning in slides and now i have huge files (26mb each)

what is the best way to make them smaller? or how small must i make them?

They are currently scanned at 2400DPI (I scanned them this high because it was the only way i got optimum quality)

So now the qestion is what size should i make them to put onto CD/DVD?

Regards and thanks in advance
Peder

I'd use irfanview: http://www.irfanview.com/

It features a nice user-friendly batch conversion tool that allows for a whole host of options and parameters.

What resolution (x by y pixels) does the slides scan to at 2400DPI? And the colour depth? You probably don't need full 24-bit colour, but I'd be loathe to remove any detail from your master images. If you want to back up to CD/DVD, I'd store them at their current resolution and colour depth. If you want to distribute them or publish them, you should pick an appropriate resolution and format.

Juice
 
yeah tiff, should i rather convert them to jpg/ scan the rest in jpg?

I wasn't sure what was the best to scan in so i thought ok tiff will do :D

I was thinking of making a cd with pics just for viewing and a dvd for archival(with full size photo's, but at the rate these pics are taking up space i'm going to be making many dvd's. So should i rather save them in JPG?

Ah, question answered. If the number of DVD's is a concern, maybe think about getting a large external HDD just for the back-ups. At 25-odd MB per photo, you're only getting about 200 photos on a DVD. Just how many pics do you have??

Juice
 
Ah, question answered. If the number of DVD's is a concern, maybe think about getting a large external HDD just for the back-ups. At 25-odd MB per photo, you're only getting about 200 photos on a DVD. Just how many pics do you have??

Juice

I'm charging a meagre R2 per Slide, and there are 400 slides, each slide takes 5mins to scan not talking about post processing.

So i will see, i scanned them at 48 bit :P didn't expect them to be so huge but will definately make a plan lol
 
48-bit!! Wow... OK, maybe cut that down to start with. 16-bit should be more than sufficient and it'll leave you with a 8Mb image, I reckon...

Juice
 
irfanview :) You should also be able to export all the TIFFs to a 100% quality JPEG, which would be more accessible to your client from whatever they use to view as well.

Juice
 
The 48-bit TIFFs? What is the pixel size of those images anyway? If it's big enough, the 100% JPEG's will actually provide good enough quality even for printing to A5 or A4...

Juice
 
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