The pictures on my web pages come from a number of different sources but most have been taken by myself. Since June 1999 nearly all my photo work has been done using a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera on which I generally take originals at 1600 x 1200 resolution and "fine" quality (approximately 8:1 JPEG compression performed by the camera). Particularly special pictures (and the occasional comission) are taken at 1600 x 1200 but are stored as uncompressed TIFFs (8Mb!). Prior to that most photos were scanned from 35mm slides taken on a Minolta Dynax 7000i using a Canon CanoScan 2700F slide/film scanner. Photos I didn't take will most likely to have come from family and friends and will generally have been scanned from 35mm or APS colour negatives. A few pictures are scanned from prints using a fairly ancient Epson GT9000 flatbed scanner.
Over time I've scanned at all sorts of resolutions but now tend to scan at quite high levels so as to generate the best quality originals I can. I'm lucky to have a couple of quite large hard disks and am currently investigating various image management programs. Once I find one that covers everything I need I'll store the originals off-line on CD.
The majority of "in-line" or "thumbnail" images have been reduced to a resolution of approximately 200 x 150 pixels and have been further compressed, using "The JPEG Wizard" from Pegasus Imaging to give a file size of anything between 4k and 8k. I find this provides the best compromise between image quality for in-line illustration (especially on big monitors) and file size.
Most in-line images point to larger versions so that those interested in a picture can better see it. These larger images are usually available in 700 x 525, 900 x 675 and 1500 x 1125 pixel sizes. I chose those resolutions so that the whole image could readily be seen almost full screen at the standard 800 x 600 (SVGA), 1024 x 768 (XGA) and 1600 x 1200 screen resolutions. They also, of course, allow the viewer to make the trade-off decsion regarding file size and image quality. Again, these images were sized and compressed using "The JPEG Wizard".
The compression of these larger pictures was done image by image in an attempt to obtain the smallest file sizes consistent with reasonable image quality. This does mean that some images will display a certain "blockiness" in some of the detail or areas of similar colour may be slightly blurred. However, I think, very subjectively, that they all still look good when viewed.
File sizes at 700 x 525 typically range from 12k to 30k; at 900 x 675 they are only a little larger, ranging from about 15k to about 38k; the largest, 1600 x 1125, images have file sizes between about 25k and 65k (not a bad achievement when the originals vary from 600k to over 1Mb!).
The lack of time and an abundance of impatience means that I don't retouch images unless there is a major problem such as hair marks, large scratches or rain on the camera lens. I usually use JASC's Paintshop Pro (now at version 6) to do any retouching that's needed, generally favouring the Clone Brush tool as it's relatively easy to use - even for me! I think I'm getting better but one picture on my Canals 98 pages does have some slightly peculiar cloud formations!
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Most 200 x 150 in-line thumbnail pictures have clickable areas which allow access to the three higher resolutions. For a landscape image click on the left for the 700 x 525 picture, click on the middle for a 900 x 675 version and click on the right to see the largest 1500 x 1125 size. The procedure is similar with portrait format images but the thumbnail is split into top, middle and bottom clickable areas to access 700 x 525, 900 x 675 and 1500 x 1125 versions of the image respectively. |
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Unless specifically otherwise attributed I or my friends own the Copyright© to all of the text and most of the pictures on my web pages. If you want to use any of them on your own, non-commercial, web site there probably won't be a problem but you MUST ask first. Images (or even text) can also be available for commercial use (either as used on the site or the originals) at standard rates. In both cases e-mail me on prs@fship.demon.co.uk. Of course, links to my pages are encouraged but please let me know, partly out of courtesy but mainly so that I can let you know in the highly likely event that I move them around.
