Posted by Judy S. on December 31, 1998 at 20:09:59:
In Reply to: Advice: Scanner for ukiyo-e posted by Judy Hahn on December 30, 1998 at 17:21:15:
: I want something that with an enlarged version of the thumbnail on the website won't take forever to download. I've noticed on some websites that the images load in stripes, and fairly rapidly. Some load a fuzzy picture at first which gets clearer and more detailed with repeated passes. With some nothing is seen until the whole thing loads (and my impression is that for most of this type the loading takes a long time).
Judy Hahn
Hi. I don't know anything very specific about scanning prints but I can explain some of the phenomena you have noticed. They are a function not of the scanner but of the software connected to it (photo or picture editor) and what you do with it. Once you have scanned a picture, you can save it in one of a number of formats; the only two that are suitable for Web pages are .gif and .jpg (jpeg); pictures in these formats, with these three-letter extenders, can be read by Web browsers.
The .gif files are pretty high-resolution, and can be set to load interlaced or uninterlaced (the different types of load you have seen). However, .gif files are usually not used for art works, photographs, etc. because they are very large and take a long time to load. They are used more for small, simple things--cartoons, logos, etc. The advantage of a .gif is that you can make the background transparent, creating a picture that appears not to be rectangular.
The .jpg file has an option (usually at the point where you save the edited picture) that allows you to save versions with less resolution, which load faster. A thumbnail, because it is so small, does not need the detail that high resolution gives; with a larger picture for study, you might want to experiment with different resolutions and even check the look of a copy on different computers. I think some photo editors will generate a thumbnail for you, but that file has to have a different name from the larger scan.
You might want to look at some of the sites that have prints and presentation styles you admire (or dislike) and examine the images. By holding down the right mouse button with the curson on the image, you can see if it is a .jpg or .gif file.
The editing software can do quite a bit--sharpening the scan, re-sizing the scan so it fits on a computer screen, cropping out a detail so that you can compare, say, hands by the same or different artists side by side, etc. Maybe you can get your scanner salesman to give you a little tutorial on what the software can do--the scanner will come with some kind of package.
Good luck. I hope someone else can give more print-specific information (the main thing I can think of is to be sure you have an oban-sized scanning window to lay the prints on).
Judy