Picture Salon Helpful Hints Page

Digitally Capturing Artwork

1. Scanning Your Artwork:

You may not always be able to send us your original artwork for scanning. In such a situation, try to find a reprographics company in your local yellow pages that can scan it for you. Most scanners can accept media (paper) that is the thickness of mat board. So, if you are reproducing a drawing, watercolor or pastel, it should be possible to get high quality scan at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately, scanners cannot accept stretched canvas unless the local company uses a Cruse scanner. We always recommend that you have your artwork scanned at the original size at 300 dpi (or dots per inch).

2. Photographing Your Artwork: 

If you are a painter (oil/acrylic) and you would like to reproduce your art as a giclée, you will either need to have a professional photographer take a picture, take a picture yourself or send it to us to photograph.

If you decide to try taking a picture with your digital camera, please keep in mind the following points:

• Make sure your camera is set to its’ highest resolution.
• Light your art as evenly as possible. If you are shooting outside, make sure it is not in direct sunlight.
• Make sure the camera lens is parallel to the surface of the artwork.
• “Bracket” or take different exposures.

The more megapixels the camera has, the better the result. We have seen some pretty good pictures recently, but the quality of a consumer digital camera can never beat having it done professionally. So, if you are looking for the highest quality, we recommend sending it to us or using a local photographer who has done this sort of work before.

Working with image files

1. How to determine the image size:

Quite often our customers aren't sure of the exact size of their image files - usually because they don't have the software program to determine it.

However, if you do have Adobe Elements, select the menu item ‘IMAGE’, then select the sub menu item ‘RESIZE’.  Once you click on that you’ll see a window that shows the image width and height in inches.  It also shows the pixels per inch.  You can experiment with different sizes by varying the width or height.  For example, if you open an image that is 3” x 4”, you can enter 12” into the width and you will see that the height becomes 16”.   For other software, look in their HELP for Image Size.  Most software has similar functions.

Excellent Free Editing Program from GIMP

We just recently discovered an exciting photo-editing tool that is available for free and has many powerful features similar to Photoshop. The product is called "Gimp" and it is available for download at Gimp.org (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Not only can you determine the size of your image, but you can enlarge and boost the ppi (pixels to inch) to the standard that we use -- which is 300 ppi or dpi (dots per inch). So please feel free to download the software and have fun with it! Please also make a donation if you decide you wish to keep the product.

2. JPEG vs. TIF files - Pro's and Con's:

In order to maintain the highest quality digital image, avoid working with .jpg files if possible. The JPEG format uses what’s called ‘lossy’ compression.  It’s very good at creating smaller, compressed files but it achieves that by losing some of the image data.  Additionally, with jpg files, every time the file is re saved more data can be lost. 

For fine art printing, at PictureSalon.com we recommend working with TIF files.  They do not lose information every time they are opened and re saved.  These files are larger and therefore slower to work with but the final prints will be higher quality.  TIF files can be compressed using the LZW option.  LZW is  ‘lossless’ compression.  Image detail isn’t lost.  Another ‘lossless’ compression is ZIP.

3. How To Properly Enlarge an Image File:

The best method for enlarging a digital file is to use software that utilizes the latest interpolation techniques. We use Adobe Photoshop and it does an excellent job of increasing the image size.  We do not recommend using any other software -- unless it is very specialized -- for enlarging images.

4. How Large Can You Make Your Print (based upon file quality)?:

Determining how large you can make your image is dependent upon several factors, the main one being the resolution of your image.  If you use a digital camera, obviously a 6MP camera will yield decent quality for enlarging – but a 10MP camera would be even better. As a starting point, we recommend reading  the camera manufacturers’ manual for enlargement guidelines.

Everything is relative when it comes to determining the right print size. What do we mean by that? You wouldn't stand as close to a 30x40 print as you would an 8x10. So, instead of fretting over the grain or pixel size, first see if your image looks sharp as an 8x10 print from your home printer.  If it does, there is a pretty good chance that it will look good even larger.  Even better, crop and enlarge a section of your image and print it (if you have the software to do it).

If you are in doubt, just send the image to us and we’ll give you our professional opinion.

5. Calibrating your monitor:

Quite often we are sent images that are not quite ready to print and need adjusting. Usually the problem is that the "levels" or highlights down to shadows are not properly adjusted making for a dull and fairly dark print.

However, if our customers were working from a monitor that was properly calibrated,chances are better that the images would not require any adjusting.

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How to enlarge an image using GIMP (Gimp.org).

Open your image.

Go to "Scale Image" under "Image".

First, check the size of your image.

Then, change the resolution to 300 pixels per inch. After the
resolution is set, then enter the desired image size.

Click "Scale" to enlarge the image. Make sure to select "Cubic"
interpolation which does the best job (Note: you may have to
go to the "Preferences" area to choose a larger, allowable size)..

Voila! See you new enlarged image. Be sure to save it using a
different name - preferably with the image dimensions in the
name (be sure not to include dots (.) in the name if you use a PC).