A 9" x 6" scan balloons into huge sizes

Hello again,

I cannot seem to get this challenge remedied. It shows up on the covers of my books I send to Snowfall Press to get PODed - the cover/back graphics are "fuzzy".

Example: When I scan a 6 x 9 (actually with cover, spline and back ) 13" x 6" at 300 dpi the resulting graphic comes out huge (something over 22"). When I reduce it down to 6 x 9 size to submit it to POD - using many programs (Preview, Graphics Converter, etc.) I have to reduce the dpi to 72. The result is "blurry print/graphics" This never used to happen - I don't know what changed in my programs/etc. to cause this to start happening.

My goal is to have the 13" x 6" graphic stay 300 dpi for the clarity Snowfall Press needs for cover work.

In A Nutshell: How do I keep 300 dpi AND the small size? Where in my sequence from printer to press-ready is this remedied? (I've got about a dozen book covers/backs/splines to remedy this winter - it's making me crazier!)

I'll try to attach an example of one cover this is happening to. (It seems I can't upload to this thread a 2.5 MB pdf) I had to upload the jpg version - the pdf is too large.

Thank you,

Dennis

A 2nd, related question

Hello again - Re: the post above re: having to turn a 300 dpi into a 72 dpi to keep the same dimensions (result - fuzzy covers backs on submitted books to POD)

Is there a way to return the 72 pdf that was made back into a 300 dpi - or is the original "lost in space" when I reduced it to 72?

(I hope I explained it well enough. Please be patient with this old man! - chuckle)

Dennis

I may not be understanding the problem, but if you need 300 dpi for a 13x6 scan the file is going to be fairly big.

What I see you saying (maybe not understanding) is your issue is with the way it appears on your screen afterward. If so, this is just a function of the zoom you have set. Just adjust the zoom under View in your menu to what ever you want it to be for comfortable viewing.

If you try to do this by reducing the dpi you reduce the information (resoloution) of the image and it will be blurry, no way around that.

Hello, Thank you for responding. It's not only how it appears on my screen as a "zoom" it's in the way it presents itself when I go go paste it in the printer's layout screen. It has gone from my 13 x 6 to a gigantic ?22 x I forget. I pull it back from their on-line computer, and have to reduce it to 72 dpi to get it to fit. (It's in my end of it because that's how it also appears in my Graphic Converter program - and other programs)

I don't know the right words to describe it because it doesn't fit anything I know - but it just won't squeeze 300 dpi into the designated size - 300 dpi WANTS to go to 22" x x"
I want 300 dpi to stay within the 13 x 6 format!

Does this make it clearer to you? (it isn't to me - chuckle)

I'm not sure I can help. You appear to be running up against a program Or settings glitch either on your end or the target software.

Here is a link that may (or may not) be helpful.
DPI and PPI Explained – Andrew Dacey Photography

From that you can see that a 13x6 image/scan at 300 dpi is going to be large

13x300x6x300=7,020,000 pixels. Or a 7MB image file

If you resize to 72 dpi your file size will decrease to around 400 KB, but your sharpness will decrease markedly as well.

That is an amazing article you referred me to - years at this machine and I still don't know this "stuff" - believe it or not I've written and "produced" 20+ books - but still don't know what I'm doing on these programs. It was simple - now I'm in over my head.

I think the answer to my problem may lie somewhere in the "sample" and "re-sample" concept. I have to read and re-read that to understand it. It appears I need to keep the dimensions the same and have the higher amount of "dpi".

Have I got it - so far? Can I come back to you for more coaching as I explore this? Any help from anybody would allow me to move on in this process. I'm frustrated and need to re-do the covers this winter!

Thank you,

Dennis Hooker

FreeTeacherBooks.php

ardenlester00 said:

That is an amazing article you referred me to - years at this machine and I still don't know this "stuff" - believe it or not I've written and "produced" 20+ books - but still don't know what I'm doing on these programs. It was simple - now I'm in over my head.

I think the answer to my problem may lie somewhere in the "sample" and "re-sample" concept. I have to read and re-read that to understand it. It appears I need to keep the dimensions the same and have the higher amount of "dpi".

Have I got it - so far? Can I come back to you for more coaching as I explore this? Any help from anybody would allow me to move on in this process. I'm frustrated and need to re-do the covers this winter!

Thank you,

Dennis Hooker

FreeTeacherBooks.php

Click to expand...

I would be happy to help all I can (which, honestly may not be much).

Hello again, I think I am getting closer to figuring out what the problem is. I worked all morning scanning a picture on my Canon at 300 dpi. Transferred it to my desktop. It STAYED 300 dpi and the 13" x 9" I was after. I put it into ColorIt - where I do all my desktop graphics. I first opened a file with the cover dimensions that I want - the "canvas size of 13 x 9") - and set the resolution at "300 dpi" , then import my scan (also at 300 dpi) it seems to want to stay at the original size (13 x 9),

If I open ColorIt directly by importing the graphic (bypassing the pre-made "canvas") the graphic opens to a very large size. (obviously ColorIt must be set at 72 default.)

I'm now beginning to assume that the 300 dpi graphics want to expand to their full balloon size (if not pre-constrained by a set page size) and will then "default" to present a 72 dpi picture - that' takes a couple dozen inches to do that.

If I constrain the 300 dpi graphic to a pre-set "canvas" (what they call it in ColorIt) of 13 x 9, then I get the clarity of all 300 dpi's into the proper book cover size that I want)

Does that make sense, or have I "lost it" somewhere along the line? (Well, I "lost it" long time ago - and "find it" now and then!

Friend,

Dennis

ardenlester00 said:

Hello again, I think I am getting closer to figuring out what the problem is. I worked all morning scanning a picture on my Canon at 300 dpi. Transferred it to my desktop. It STAYED 300 dpi and the 13" x 9" I was after. I put it into ColorIt - where I do all my desktop graphics. If I put it in before opening a window and giving the "canvas size" and setting the resolution at "300 dpi" , then import my scan (also at 300 dpi) it seems to want to stay at the original size (13 x 9),

If I open ColorIt directly by importing the graphic (bypassing the pre-made "canvas") the graphic opens to a very large size. (obviously ColorIt must be set at 72 default.)

I'm now beginning to assume that the 300 dpi graphics want to expand to their full balloon size and present a 72 picture - that' takes a couple dozen inches to do that.

If I constrain the 300 dpi graphic to a pre-set "canvas" (what they call it in ColorIt) of 13 x 9, then I get the clarity of all 300 dpi's into the proper book cover size i want)

Does that make sense, or have I "lost it" somewhere along the line?

Friend,

Dennis

Click to expand...

It makes sense to me, but more importantly it seems to be working.

Glad things are looking up.