Discussion Photoshop - Questions and Discussion

[Evi1d33d]

RAW too small

Is there a good way to enlarge raws that are too small? I tried the sharpen filters but they just don't look any good.

 

[Xiphias]

Re: RAW too small

In photoshop? Not unless you want to make the raws look like crap. The only way to get bigger raws is to buy the tank/mag and scan it yourself.

 

[rebmastu]

Saving pngs?

I've been using jpgs to save my Edited Mangas for a while now (editor/typesetter here, lawlzerbots), and I'm really really unsatisfied with the artifaction it leaves on the finished scans, especially after taking 2+ hours of cleaning work on a page just to have it show up just as dirty as when I first started working on it. I've started looking into pngs, but I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to how to save them to get the smallest possible file size.

For the record, I use photoshop for my editing work, and even when I use an indexed color palette the end size of the file is about a third more than I'd like it to be. For me, a normally saved png runs about 400kb, while I'd like my optimal window to be somewhere between 200-300kb. (And even then, a 30-page chapter is going to be about 9 megs big.)

While I'm on that note, what's about an acceptable size for chapters? I've been thinking between 5-10 megs a chapter. (Let's say we're working with a 30-page monthly at 1200px in height.)

Anyway, if anybody could drop some hints as to how to really drop my png size, I'd much appreciate it. I'm totally at my wits' end and COMPLETELY sick of jpegs right now.

 

[Digitalr]

Re: Saving pngs?

Use Save for web, choose png-8 and select the amount of colour you want... 17-21ish.. if you want to save it in more colours, 64 should be the max. After that, you can further decrease the size using pngcrush, pngoptimize or other similar png file reducers. PMed you a link for an easy program along with everything explained in detail. (some groups don't like to be linked to)

 

[rebmastu]

Re: Saving pngs?

Excellent, I'll take a look at that and see how it works. Thanks for the help!

 

[chiresakura]

Re: Saving pngs?

We use the same method as Digitalr:

http://senbonzakura.kageyoshi.net/2008/04/03/saving-as-a-png/

 

[Assymilum]

Re: Saving pngs?

I've been using jpgs to save my Edited Mangas for a while now (editor/typesetter here, lawlzerbots), and I'm really really unsatisfied with the artifaction it leaves on the finished scans, especially after taking 2+ hours of cleaning work on a page just to have it show up just as dirty as when I first started working on it. I've started looking into pngs, but I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to how to save them to get the smallest possible file size.

For the record, I use photoshop for my editing work, and even when I use an indexed color palette the end size of the file is about a third more than I'd like it to be. For me, a normally saved png runs about 400kb, while I'd like my optimal window to be somewhere between 200-300kb. (And even then, a 30-page chapter is going to be about 9 megs big.)

While I'm on that note, what's about an acceptable size for chapters? I've been thinking between 5-10 megs a chapter. (Let's say we're working with a 30-page monthly at 1200px in height.)

Anyway, if anybody could drop some hints as to how to really drop my png size, I'd much appreciate it. I'm totally at my wits' end and COMPLETELY sick of jpegs right now.

Well, the settings are the same as what Digitalr has. (I usually saved it around 24-32 bits, though. )

As for the acceptable size of chapters, hmm... around 5MB-7MB is probably best for a normal chapter with around 20 pages. For 30-page monthly, I guess ideally it'll be 9-11 megas.

 

[wade69]

Re: Saving pngs?

File < Save for web

Works pretty good most of the time.

 

[rebmastu]

Re: Saving pngs?

Excellent! I tried all of the techniques listed here, and realized I've been missing out on some great quality small files. Ughhhh, now I feel terrible for ever releasing jpgs when I could achieve smaller filesizes with pngs at absolutely no quality loss. *hangs head in shame*

In short, thanks! Works perfectly!

 

[makhan]

[CS4] Making selection outside of the picture bounds

In Adobe Photoshop CS3, when you used polygonal lasso tool, you could freely make selection outside of the picture bounds.
In CS4 it is automatically changed to fit in the picture.
Is there a way to force CS4 to act like CS3 in that matter?

What I mean:

 

[progste]

Re: [CS4] Making selection outside of the picture bounds

I'm having the same problem.
if you are using the lasso to stroke a path you can use the pen-tool instead

 

[EtrianFOE]

How do I merge doublepages in Photoshop?

I'm fairly new to cleaning and I'm struggling joining together two pages. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[student_sol]

Re: How do I merge doublepages in Photoshop?

There might be a simpler method but I just create a new page the size of both

pages added together. Then I drag both pages to the new page using the move tool

on the very top of the tool palette. After making sure they fit, press "control e" to

merge the pages.

 

[[Ju-Ni]Vicissitude]

Re: How do I merge doublepages in Photoshop?

What I do is to first rotate the pages so they're both straight. Then I change the canvas size of one, usually the left-hand page out of habit, to 15.0 inches. That's a little more than twice the width of a page the way I scan, so I have some room to play with.

Next, I copy/paste the other page in and try to line them up as best I can. For weekly pages, this is usually pretty easy. Sometimes, there's a gap that you have to fill by coloring in by hand (that comes later, though), but most of the time, it's fairly simple. Occasionally, you'll get printing errors and the pages won't line up anyway. In that case, I just do a free transform to scale the smaller page up slightly to match. Then I crop away the excess space and do my precleaning. Once I'm resized down to 1500 height, I focus on the join first, then on cleaning the rest of the page.

 

[Aetheus]

Bizarre Leveling Problem

Not sure if this is the right place to post this thread, as this seems more like a Photoshop problem than anything else. Although, then again, I am a newbie, so (hopefully) the veterans around here have already bumped into this sort of problem and know how to fix it.

As you might have guessed from the title, I am having issues with levels. Specifically, when I max out the levels, my page either turns completely black, or completely white. Here's an example of what I mean:

This problem is frustrating me to no end, and makes checking for dirt a real pain the butt. It din't always used to be this way. The problems only started kicking in when I reinstalled Photoshop, because my PS used to crash often whenever I copied+pasted anything. Reinstalling fixed that problem ... and brought up this one in its place. I've tried reinstalling again a few times ... and it ain't fixing the problem. =/

 

[zidane]

Re: Bizarre Leveling Problem

I don't see a problem on the screenshots you show here. Yes, when you overlevel it straight from the raw, which has no whites, it's gonna turn all black, that is what happens.
Checking for dirt is usually something you do by adding the adjustment-level-layer on top of the already cleaned and properly leveled image, which then doesn't turn all black.

Sorry if I misunderstood anything, but it appears to me like you just forgot that the page needs clearly defined whites and blacks first, before you can go all wild on the adjustment-layer to see the dirt more clearly.

 

[Name-Undecided]

Re: Bizarre Leveling Problem

I don't get your problem. I mean, of course the picture is going to turn black/white if you move one of the indicators all the way to the other side. It's not a bug, it's a feature.

 

[Aetheus]

Re: Bizarre Leveling Problem

-facepalm-

Just realized that for all the pages where max leveling did work, they were pages that I had already leveled and cleared of general dirt. Feeling pretty dumb right now.

Thanks for answering my idiotic question anyway, folks. Sorry for the waste of time. ><

 

[Raenef]

hope u don't mind if I have missed the post for my question but i did not find it

in some guide videos in the right tool bar (photoshop) they hat in the navigator area a small pic from which they were actually working on with the area they see in a red square

how can I activate that?

tx in advance

 

[DrPepperPro]

Make sure Window>Navigator has a checkmark next to it. If it already does, then you might have that panel minimized or collapsed. These images might help:
http://tutorialsfreephotoshop.com/_...he image/Nudging the screen form keyboard.jpg
http://www.lanoie.com/classes/Photoshop/Interface/images/palette_group_cs3.gif
http://www.lanoie.com/classes/Photoshop/Interface/images/panel_color_collapsed_cs5.gif
Anyways, I don't find it that useful since you can hold space and left-click drag the mouse to move around.

Also for the photoshop related things you asked about in the challenge attempt thread:

1. i have problems rotating it, looks like I need a word of advice there

2. is there any option in photoshop that u can zoom in/out with ur mouse wheel?

4. how can i see the raw and the pic i am working on next to each other without a second monitor

1. Use the ruler tool to check if it needs rotating, then go to Image>Rotate Canvas>Arbitrary... and it will automatically have the number there from the ruler to straighten the line. Example:
http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc145/DrPepperPro/misc/SNAG-0015.png
You'll probably have to right click where the ruler tool is and select it since there's multiple tools there. Rotating should be done pretty much first, before typesetting at least so the text doesn't get rotated.

2. alt + mousewheel scroll (option key for mac)

4. You can make a group (http://www.bittbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/group_from_layers_1.png) and place a copy of the original raw layer into it. Then do all your scantimerlinatingz work in that group, and at any time you can turn the little eye button thing on and off to see the raw.