emrob62 Loc: NEPA

Does anybody have experience in working with scanned documents that you want to include with pictures in a single print. I have hand written paper that I scanned into Iphoto with the intention of making a poster with some pictures of the kids. Its a poem my daughter wrote that will go well with a theme for the poster. What I need to know is how to go about enlrging it without distorting the image. I saved it as a jpeg, should it be saved as something else? Anyfeed back will be appreciated. Also with that are several older film based pis that I scanned, any suggestion on best way to handle those will be helpful too.

wyndjammr

What matters most for enlarging something like handwriting is the resolution you set the scan to. The higher res the scan, the better the scanned image and the more you can get away with enlarging it. I find it also helps to choose "photo" instead of "text" when scanning anything handwritten. If you scan to a jpg you should immediately save it something else (psd or tif) to work with it, as it will degrade each time you save it if you work with it in jpg. Once you have enlarged, you can work with the sharpen tools in filters (if you are using PS) to make the letters crisper. Adjusting contrast may be helpful as well. But keep in mind this is a photo, so you are working with pixels, it will not enlarge perfectly smoothly like a vector font.

emrob62 Loc: NEPA

Thanks wyndjammer. I hope to be working on this project over the weekend, if I run inot issues I may track you down. I did scan the page as a photo, but I'll reso that and save it as tif rather than jpeg before I start the enlarging process. If all goes well I'll try to post the results. Thanks again.

wyndjammr

you're welcome - have fun!

Sensei

if you have Elements you can re-size the image and change the resolution. With a program like word, you can than take a copy of the image and place it in the document. You will have a bit more control of placement if the image is placed into a text box, which can be freely moved around the page.

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

Depends to some degree on what software you're using. Scanning to TIFF at 300 dpi will give you high-quality print results that you can work with. I don't know Elements, so I can't give you any specific advice on combining images. You might have some problems if the photo(s) and the scan are at different resolutions, but you should be able to scale them.

I'm no fan of MS Word for graphics. High-end page layout software like QuarkXpress or InDesign give you much better control. Illustrator or a similar graphics program will also allow excellent results.

emrob62 Loc: NEPA

Sensei, Rmm Thanks for your input. I'm primarily using Iphoto right now but have A version of Photoshop elements that I have to sneak into a currently unused pc. I say sneak because the project is a gift for my wife and daughter and they'lll get suspicious when they see the idle pc all hooked up again. Hoping they go shopping for a day soon

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

If you're using iPhoto, you can File -> Export your photos to the Desktop in Current form. If you have nothing else suitable, you can download a free copy of OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org), and go into the Drawing program. You can Insert -> Picture from file -> one or more pictures, scale, rotate, add text, etc.

Another option in iPhoto if you have a group of photos is to File -> Export and click on the Quicktime tab. You can create a movie of selected shots, add music and select various effects.

Have fun!

emrob62 Loc: NEPA

Thanks, I'll have to give that a try.