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From brochure to webpage... (scanning old graphics)?
Subject:From brochure to webpage... (scanning old graphics)? From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 22 May 2001 10:30:14 -0400
Diana Barnum wonders: <<I want to create a site using graphics from old
brochures that no longer have original files to make into .gifs, .tifs,
etc... my software limitations include MS Office and my HP Printer/Scanner.
Any way to do this? Scanning the brochures & manipulating the image -
cutting out pictures, deleting white space, etc works some. But the results
are not "picture perfect" for adding to a web page.>>
First off, make sure you have permission to reuse the graphics; they're
copyrighted material, and even if you're working for the company that
produced the brochure, your employer may not have purchased online usage
rights from the original artist. If you can't determine ownership easily
because you can't contact the artist to obtain the original graphics, it's
sometimes easiest (and safest) just to recreate them from scratch. Of
course, if you can determine ownership, you'll save yourself tons of time
(and potential legal entanglements) if you ask the creator to provide the
graphics. In rare cases, the printer who produced the brochures may have the
original image files available. Worth a call!
If you do decide to scan the printed materials, you need to be aware that
color graphics must be "screened" (broken into color-separated halftone
dots) to prepare them for printing, and if you scan the resulting output,
you need to "descreen" the graphics before you can get acceptable image
quality. Photoshop includes descreening tools, and most other current
software should have something comparable. Check the manual to see the
developer's recommendations for what scan settings to use to produce an
optimal file for descreening.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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