What to Do If the Size of Your Digital Image is Too Small
Scanning turns your film-based work into digital form, which you can work with in your computer.
The quality of the digitization is crucial to the quality of everything you subsequently do with your images, so you can see that it is important to take considerable care at this stage of the process.
You do not want to work at an image for days only to discover it was scanned at too low a resolution or that it has defects that are too deep to remove without undoing all your work.
Problem: File size is too small The commonest error is working on a file size that is too small for the intended task (see pp.
218-19 for details on how to calculate the optimum file size).
Always check your image's file size before you do any work on it: you want it to be neither too large (as it will slow your work down unnecessarily), nor too small (as output quality will then be too low).
Solution If you discover that the file size you are working on is too small for what you want to do with it then you have no option other than rescanning and starting again.
The quicker you come to this decision the less of your work you will have to redo.
Problem: Newton's rings When you place a film strip directly on the glass surface of your flat-bed scanner, although you may not realize it you are also trapping a thin layer of air beneath the film.
This layer of air acts like an oil film - of the type you often see oh a road surface - that causes the light to 1 spirt into rainbow-coloured patterns, known as "Newton's rings".
These coloured distortions are extremely troublesome to remove from the image and it is best to avoid them occurring in the first place.
Solution Avoid placing film strips directly on the scanner's glass surface.
Most scanner manufacturers provide special holders for film strips or individual frames.
If this is not the case with your machine; then make certain that the scanner is well warmed up before starting - hot dry air seems to reduce the incidence of Newton's rings.
Newton's rings This film (only a portion of which is seen here) was scanned on a flat-bed scanner because, having been produced by a panoramic camera, it was too long to fit into a normal film scanner.
When held down by tfle scanner's lid, the trapped air created these tree-ring-like patterns (which have been slightly exaggerated for reproduction purposes).
They are extremely difficult to remove as they cover a large area and are also coloured.
The quality of the digitization is crucial to the quality of everything you subsequently do with your images, so you can see that it is important to take considerable care at this stage of the process.
You do not want to work at an image for days only to discover it was scanned at too low a resolution or that it has defects that are too deep to remove without undoing all your work.
Problem: File size is too small The commonest error is working on a file size that is too small for the intended task (see pp.
218-19 for details on how to calculate the optimum file size).
Always check your image's file size before you do any work on it: you want it to be neither too large (as it will slow your work down unnecessarily), nor too small (as output quality will then be too low).
Solution If you discover that the file size you are working on is too small for what you want to do with it then you have no option other than rescanning and starting again.
The quicker you come to this decision the less of your work you will have to redo.
Problem: Newton's rings When you place a film strip directly on the glass surface of your flat-bed scanner, although you may not realize it you are also trapping a thin layer of air beneath the film.
This layer of air acts like an oil film - of the type you often see oh a road surface - that causes the light to 1 spirt into rainbow-coloured patterns, known as "Newton's rings".
These coloured distortions are extremely troublesome to remove from the image and it is best to avoid them occurring in the first place.
Solution Avoid placing film strips directly on the scanner's glass surface.
Most scanner manufacturers provide special holders for film strips or individual frames.
If this is not the case with your machine; then make certain that the scanner is well warmed up before starting - hot dry air seems to reduce the incidence of Newton's rings.
Newton's rings This film (only a portion of which is seen here) was scanned on a flat-bed scanner because, having been produced by a panoramic camera, it was too long to fit into a normal film scanner.
When held down by tfle scanner's lid, the trapped air created these tree-ring-like patterns (which have been slightly exaggerated for reproduction purposes).
They are extremely difficult to remove as they cover a large area and are also coloured.
