[Coco] Master List

KnudsenMJ at aol.com KnudsenMJ at aol.com
Sat Mar 6 23:37:54 EST 2004


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.  

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.

 



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