Image Creation Guide

Image Basics ~ Using Photographs ~ Animated Images The Best Image Tools

If you're like me and not exactly a natural artist when it comes to drawing, you can get around that limitation with the imaginative use of the Polaroid that's gathering dust in your closet! Whether you need an original graphic for a tiny hyperlink icon or a big logo at the top of your page, just do it yourself! Starting Out: Besides a camera of some sort, you'll need a scanner to turn your photos into computer readable files. The best type of scanner is a desktop scanner. These resemble small, flat copying machines, and work much the same way. You place your photo face down on the glass part of the scanner, lower the lid over it and scan away. You can also use an inexpensive hand scanner, but these tend to leave 'light streaks' in the computer images they produce. If your image is going to end up small, however, that won't matter. Scanning Photographs For Web Use: When I scan a photo that I plan to use on the Web, I scan it in at a very high dots-per-inch resolution. Most scanner software will allow you to adjust this setting directly from the image processing program you use (like PhotoShop) and it's usually called the DPI setting. I scan my own images at 300 DPI using true color, whether or not the image will end up as black & white. This makes the initial scanned image huge, but when you use your image program's Resample feature to make the image smaller (don't use Resize on photos), it will retain more detail than if you scan it at a lower resolution. After Resampling, you can use the Sharpen command to bring the detail out. You'll also usually find it necessary to adjust the scanned image's brightness and contrast. High contrast photos are very effective on web pages. Image Basics ~ Using Photographs ~ Animated Images The Best Image Tools Copyright © 1997 by MicroVision Development, Inc.