handyman

Hi guys, End of another week and time to do some mindless simple images I've got to catch up on, while the mind freewheels over a beer. Before the beer kicks in though, I am wondering about the text in my images. I am compiling images that end up 1000px across and will use them at 300dpi. Is it better to put large text into the image whilst it's still large (2-3000px) and then resize down to 1000px or is it better to not subject the text to a resize by resizing the image first (down to the 1000px) and then pop the smaller text straight into the finished size image. Which was will give sharper text (assuming a 2 point sharpen if resizing the text in a large image) Coo, does that make sense? (and that's before the beer!) I'll attach a sample image to show the kind of thing.... Cheers Ian p.s I learned to move over to PNG this week after reading that the JPG I had been using as 'standard' loses quality, looks like I was the last to find out.......

Thanks! Createspace is the way to go I agree. But it's such an exciting time because the field is getting bigger and easier all the time. So many platforms and so many different ways of approaching it. Itunes, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble etc etc. Plus audio, and different language versions. Add to that learning about publishing in general, cover design, typography, interior layouts, marketing and expanded channels. Oh, and realising that you know nearly nothing about your own language, (well according to MS spell and grammar checker lol!) Still, keeps us out of trouble doesn't it, and best of all it doesn't cost a dime (if you exclude buying brilliant ebooks that is.....) I'll keep a running note in evernote with 'useful' feedback about the book...... Cheers for now, stuff to do....

Thanks guys, it does look like I just need to experiment more and try out some plugins to lessen the donkey work (that I'd quite been enjoying) there's something satisfying about deleting pixels........ I've been using a 'stock' set up for now, although today I did add a few goodies from the loooong list! *laughing* about the 'club' badge welshblue, that'd be something wouldn't it! I did think about the 'out of context' nature of the image after I'd posted it. It's potentially to go on the cover of a DIY related book I'm almost finished (hence seeing if I've got the chops to design the cover), probably not, but at least my attempts might give the pro, I'll no doubt have to hire in the end, an idea what I want.... I will let you know about the book for sure EER! It has the honour of being the very first (paid for book) I bought to go on the shiny new kindle fire HD that came last week...... Thanks again p.s. Looks like some of you guys are from down under? We just moved to Norway after a couple of years up at Whangarei, North of the North Island! Too many beaches man, didn't want to do any work. Got long winters for it now though duh!

Hi guys, Just grabbed Scott's book from amazon and can't wait to get a better understanding about some of the tools I've been using. In the meantime I just noticed that I have some white trails or fine lines in an image I'm working on that appear after I have been moving things around and deleting sections etc. It's no problem on a little image like this to run around with the brush to tidy it up and then fill white/transparent, but I'm wondering if there is there a setting or an order of working that avoids making the lines in the first place? Cheers guys, I don't understand a quarter of what you say but it's fun trying to do it anyway... I have filled the background in black to show the trails.... Thanks again Ian

I found it. And It was something dumb I did, sorry.I got my resolution descriptions mixed up in my file names (I am using 96dpi for the screen and 300dpi for the printed page). Guess that's what happens when you're crunching dozens of images one after the other.... Re WORD, after learning all the stuff new in 2013 (last version I bought was way back in 2000!) I gotta stick with it now... It's more powerful than ever. Thanks for the help guys, Stay well Ian

Thanks guys, I hear you. But I am assuming that whatever weird things WORD does, it'll do the same to both images (since they both come from paint after being resized/worked on etc). Oh, I just realised that this isn't a paint problem lol! I looked at the images in my photo gallery and the car is fine in both images which proves that my problem lies with the way WORD handles the images, but why does it change the image that has layers? It can't know about the layers since the image has been flattened and saved as a .jpg. Weird.

Hi guys, Been using paint for a while and finally getting around to finding out why I seem to lose a little quality whilst editing my images. I am resizing images down to 1300px wide to fit my book and they resize fine (some in paint and some in irfranview). I then add a couple of layers with some text and a coloured background. Save two copies: .pdn, and a .jpg. All the images look great until I insert the modified images into WORD where the images with the added layers isn't as sharp as the originals which look just fine. screenshot of images in WORD I think the car is definitely not as bright as the original. Any idea what I'm doing wrong... It's OK if I'm doing something really dumb, you can let me know, I've got broad shoulders.......:-) Thanks for reading this far, Cheers Ian