converting images

[Misty_Byers@adobeforums.com]

i'm pretty new to this, so i'm sorry for the elementary questions...

I'm in the process of scanning in literally thousands of family pictures. my plan is to have them on an external hardrive for myself (a MAC user), but I would like to be able to burn them to disks to give to family members (combo of MAC and PC users).

i've been scanning them in at 300 dpi and saving as tiff files. when it asks me byte order, i've been going with Macintosh (rather than IBM). i'm just now realizing that this probably means that when i burn the images to disks, the PC-users won't be able to read them.

My questions are these:

1. Am i right in thinking that PC users won't be able to open them? If so, is there a way to convert them now to PC byte order...or do I have to rescan everything?

2. Or should I jsut be saving them in IBM byte order in the first place? If so, will it cause any problem/changes when opened on a MAC?

3. Is saving them at 300 dpi/tiff the best way to go?

4. Is there a way to convert them all to jpegs (so that I can store them on my computer hard drive without using up all the space of tiff files) in batch-style, rather than one by one?

Thanks for any replies.

[Rene_Walling@adobeforums.com]

1. Am i right in thinking that PC users won't be able to open them? If
so, is there a way to convert them now to PC byte order...or do I have
to rescan everything? 2. Or should I jsut be saving them in IBM byte order
in the first place? If so, will it cause any problem/changes when opened
on a MAC?




PC or Mac byte order doesn;t really matter these days anymore, either can be opened on both platforms.

3. Is saving them at 300 dpi/tiff the best way to go?




"best" is a relative term just like pixels per inch (ppi) is a relative measure.

The "best" resolution depends on what you plan to do with the scans. If they are for printing, then 300 ppi at the final output size is good. (300 ppi is meaningless unless you also give an image size (in inches) to go with it.) If all you want is to display them on a screen, then something like 800 by 600 pixels should be plenty

4. Is there a way to convert them all to jpegs (so that I can store them
on my computer hard drive without using up all the space of tiff files)
in batch-style, rather than one by one?




You can record an action and batch process files (File ->automate -> batch ) in Photoshop.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Is there a way to convert them all to jpegs ...




Yes, as Rene explains. You will degrade the quality of the pictures, of course, as JPEG is a lossy compression format.

[Scott_Falkner@adobeforums.com]

Considerign the use for these images and CDs, JPEG has a lot to offer. The worst problem with using JPEGs is when archiving. I never say never, but NEVER archive JPEGs, except for NEVER.

Advantages of JPEG:
1. Smaller files, so fewer CDs sent.
2. Smaller files, so when non-technical users want to email a photo it will already be a maneagable size.
3. Universal format works with all browsers and graphics programs, as well as many DVD players.

Provide very prominent contact information, leting your family members know that you have master files (like negatives) and can provide them if needed.

Rene's recommendation of image size sounds ideal. You could also provide some of the best images in a higher resolution in separate directories.

[Buko@adobeforums.com]

Jpeg are lossy this = crap

You can save tifs with LZW or zip compression

the only reason to use jpeg is if it is going on the web.