Moonraker Posted 4 February , 2015 Share Posted 4 February , 2015 I've offered to provide some scans to a friend who's writing a book for Pen and Sword in its Great War series and I'm struggling with the publisher's technical requirements,(and so is he) despite my having provided similar material for two of my books produced by other companies. Over the phone my friend read out a requirement for 300dpi, jpegs (no problem there) and a width of seven inches or 175mm, or, I think, 1660 pixels (which I assume to be a second alternative measurement for the width. I'm wondering if he's misread, and that should be 1600, which appears to be a common option. The scans are mostly of postcards, and some that I've done have come out a little bit less than 1600 however much I play around with the settings on my very basic HP scanner after editing with Picasa. And I'm wondering if the original quality of the photos can affect the final number of pixels? I would appreciate any comments. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyneside Chinaman Posted 4 February , 2015 Share Posted 4 February , 2015 Hi, I've done seven books with P&S and as long as I stuck to 300 dpi there was never a problem. Indeed in the 90's before everyone had their own scanner it was a bag of photo's and in some cases photo copies. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Evans Posted 4 February , 2015 Share Posted 4 February , 2015 Moonraker, I use Irfanview for editing my images. I had a play around with the re-sizing settings and if I set to 1600 pixels (width) and then select the inches button, it comes up as 8.89 inches, or 226mm as the third alternative. 7.00 inches = 178mm = 1260 pixels doing it another way. So it looks like it should be 1260 pixels not 1660. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard_Lewis Posted 5 February , 2015 Share Posted 5 February , 2015 Three books with P&S or its imprints and 300 DPI has sailed through. You have to provide a digital image plus a hard copy and I've always printed as best fit onto 6" x 4" cards and have never even looked at the pixel stuff! Bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 5 February , 2015 Author Share Posted 5 February , 2015 Thanks for the comments. I've no issues with 300dpi; that's easy to set. It's what appears to be the requirement for a width of 1660 pixels. I sent an email to the author last night but it bounced back with the message that his mailbox was full. The irony is that for my Canadians book the publisher wanted enlarged scans of postcards, and somehow I achieved this with another cheapo HP scanner and Picasa. I've still got the scans with 2480 pixels width. Wish I could remember how I did it. Can any P & S author confirm what I infer from Phil Evans, that 1260 pixels is the width required by the company, not 1660? I'll continue to play around until I can get confirmation from the author. He would like about 16 images from me, and I've promised to send five or six on a CD so he can check with P & S that the quality is acceptable. (Being century-old postcards there are blemishes, notably on the sky, that in the past I've been able to remove with Picasa, and I'm hesitating about doing too much at this stage, as the author wants a selection to choose from ...) Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard_Lewis Posted 6 February , 2015 Share Posted 6 February , 2015 I'd not lose any sleep over this. See my Swansea Pals book and you'll see `dotty` images culled from the press of the time. As long as you have a good mix of dotty to crisp images you'll be fine. Only my opinion after 3 books with P&S of course... Bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 7 February , 2015 Author Share Posted 7 February , 2015 Yes, considering it's not even my book (and it's one I could have written myself, had I the time) I am expending quite a bit of nervous energy on this, but the author is being very grateful. Following Phil's post above, I've now downloaded Irfanview and that seems to solve the width problem, though I've only played around with it so far. Thanks, Phil, and others for their comments. I'm hoping to find the time this weekend to complete the trial scans and send them to the author, in a couple of cases providing duplicate images, one via Picasa, the other via Irfanview. We'll see what P & S have to say. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard_Lewis Posted 7 February , 2015 Share Posted 7 February , 2015 Irfanview is what I use. Just for Grey scaling or cropping the odd crumpled corner of an old photograph. Bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christina Holstein Posted 12 February , 2015 Share Posted 12 February , 2015 300 dpi and about 6 to 6 inches wide is what I was told by Pen & Sword's designer only two day's ago. Christina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Wood Posted 13 February , 2015 Share Posted 13 February , 2015 Moonraker, I use Irfanview for editing my images. I had a play around with the re-sizing settings and if I set to 1600 pixels (width) and then select the inches button, it comes up as 8.89 inches, or 226mm as the third alternative. 7.00 inches = 178mm = 1260 pixels doing it another way. So it looks like it should be 1260 pixels not 1660. Phil But 7 inches at 300dpi = 2100 pixels. Not than many images in P&S books are as big as 7 inches. I'm sure 300dpi scans will be fine unless you want them to print them larger than the original. In such cases scan at 600 or more dpi and, if necessary, downsize to ensure the size in the book is 300dpi. Will they really not accept images of higher resolution than 300dpi? It can pay to process scans to boost them a little - printing all too often seems to loose some contrast. If the images are colour and will be printed in B&W it can pay to convert them yourself and see what they look like without the colour - that way you get a chance to adjust them rather than rely on P&S. And, theoretically, you should calibrate your monitor to match the P&S printing process - not that I have never gone that far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 14 February , 2015 Author Share Posted 14 February , 2015 I found that Irfanview seemed to do the trick (thanks for the recommendations) and a week ago I sent a CD with some test scans to the author, whose broadband connection was down for several days, so he hasn't been able to get back to me yet. He now has the chore of liaising with a number of other people with possible illustrations. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hartley Posted 14 February , 2015 Share Posted 14 February , 2015 For my latest book with P & S, I sent them everything I had, fully expecting to have to negotiate with them over poorer quality inclusions. In the event, just about everything has gone in. Quite a number started as low-resolution internet downloads and these were the ones I expected some "difficulty" with. What I'd done was print them off to msee that they looked OK to me, then maybe messed about with contrast, etc. I then scanned the print back in so, if you will, I now had a high-res version of a low-res photo. No adverse comment from P & S ( I rather missed the negotiating emails I had with Roni.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard_Lewis Posted 14 February , 2015 Share Posted 14 February , 2015 Roni is an unflappable star! He treated me to lunch when I ventured into deepest Barnsley clutching the manuscript of `Swansea Pals` waaaaaay back in 2003...a nice gent and character! Bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonraker Posted 17 May , 2015 Author Share Posted 17 May , 2015 I've met up again with the author of the Salisbury edition, who said that P & S had merely commented that the trial scans were fine (see my post 11) but hadn't differentiated between those I'd done for him using Picasa and those with Irfanview. (I'd scanned a couple of cards using both programs for comparison.) I must say the author is being extremely industrious and conscientious in his researches and efforts. He's shown his draft text to several people for expert comment and I said I would cast my eye over it from the "military Wiltshire" viewpoint. Moonraker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Filsell Posted 22 June , 2015 Share Posted 22 June , 2015 I think I now know why so many of the illustrations, particularly in theBattlefields series, are so poor and offer little benefit to the reader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
museumtom Posted 22 June , 2015 Share Posted 22 June , 2015 I have two books with P&S. It was their idea, not mine, to add to each an 8 page spread of photographs. I gave them whatever I could find and they helped fill up the empty spaces with stock photographs from their own databases. When I sent the images I did have I made it clear that they are what they are, and they are all I have. The finished tomes, to their credit were extremely polished, proof read, formatted and very professional. I think they understood all I could do was what was humanly possible. I have worked with different publishers in the past and P&S are by far streets ahead of the Irish publishers for many reasons. Kind regards. Tom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard_Lewis Posted 22 June , 2015 Share Posted 22 June , 2015 Well, sometimes all you have is a grainy image copied from an old newspaper. Sometimes a nice crisp copy of an old photo. I've used both. Bernard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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