[Coco] Master List

[Stephen H. Fischer]

Hi,

TIF has several things going for it, the most _important_ is that multiple
images can be in one file.

Take pity on the tired scanner person, it not a pleasant job to be a drone
putting pages in, clicking to pre scan the page, clicking and dragging to
adjust size and then clicking for the final scan. Kodak imaging software
that came with 98, ME and 2K  makes the job a little less painful. That's
why I went to the trouble of getting it to run on XP. On XP you were
expected to pay big $$$ for the XP version with more capabilities. TIF is
Imaging output format. Perhaps I can turn on some automatic features that I
never use. When I did some OS-9 manuals I just had to put the pages down
fast and no clicking was needed. Bound magazines that cannot be taken apart
will take the most time. MOTD is bad as I remember, not clean single sheets
which can be scanned fast but problems getting the pages scanned in order.
;o)

TIF is one format that is accepted by some OCR programs should that be
intended. It will be the first format I create and the format I archive for
safe keeping.

I suggested PDF as that is the format to give to others, I could not say PDF
for sure as I do not remember if I got it installed on XP and I have removed
ME where it was running.

PNG is a good choice and one that I use a lot. GIF also if it makes the file
smaller. Single image use only.

For multiple page documents, most people will want either TIF or PDF just
because looking at many pages needs to be done easily. PDF is the winner if
you count platforms that have the reader.

I do not have the converter to line art and wonder if it helps much?

Neil, if you have the time, send me a before and after file. Viewer/Reader?
I suggest a page of a magazine for a good trial.

Remember, we want the magazines to be scanned. Accepting any format is just
fine as long as it is better than the format checks are scanned by the
banks. Not much better than 3 bits / yard. ;-(*)

Stephen H. Fischer <sfischer1 at mindspring.com>


Neil Morrison wrote:
> I just scanned a medium sized image. After converting to line art,
> the uncompressed tiff is 329 Kb. With LZW compression and LZW
> differencing on, it is 33 Kb.
>
> As a gif, it is 5 Kb.
>
> Neil
>

KnudsenMJ at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 3/6/04 4:23:59 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> adit at 1stconnect.com writes:
>
>>> TIF at 300 DPI, PDF perhaps on a CD.
>>
>>  This would probably be the recommended resolution/file format, although
>>  I'll admit a few of my scans are at 200DPI, the vast majority are at
>>  300DPI (really necessary if stuff is small point size.) Frankly as long
>>  as the stuff is gathered in some kind of 'standard' image/file formats
>>  that the majority could read I'd be happy.
>
> TIFF is a very inefficient, HUGE format, with no compression. GIF is best
> for black-and-white images, or 16 shades of gray.  On strictly 2-color
> (black & white) text and line drawings, GIF is 10x better than anything
> else.

When you are scanning you can switch to B&W or photo or 256 colors and
change from 300 to 150 or 600 DPI.

If you do, you are doing more work and you might quit sooner or just not
have the time.

> But scanned text, if in strict B&W, will be terribly broken up and
> moth-eaten
> or acid-etched looking, and lines will fade in and out of drawings.  So to
> permit "aliasing" which preserves the shapes, it's best to scan in 16
> shades of gray, and GIF that.  Under some conditions, JPEG may do better
> than GIF, certainly for 256 shades of gray as would be used for photos.
>
> Anyway, TIFF is good for temporary storage while you wait to do OCR or
> compression to GIF, but not for long term storage and certainly not
> transmission. --Mike K.

TIF is the *best* for long term storage as the effort you put in will not
have to be redone if you keep a lower resolution only. Save the originals!