[comp.text.desktop] Photographs to bits: how to proceed?

rice@WILLOW.CRAY.COM (Jonathan Rice) (03/14/91)

Here's a novice question for you:

I'd like to take a photograph of some people, and include it in a DTP'ed
document.  I won't embarrass myself by describing my DTP tools to all of you
Interleaf/Framemaker/Ventura gurus; let it suffice to say that once the
image is in most any of the popular formats I can cope.

What I haven't a clue about is how to go from camera to disk.  Do I shoot
negative or positive film?  If negative, do I work from the neg or from a
print?  If the photograph is in color, is it better to scan it in color and
dither or halftone it on the 'puter, or to scan it as grey?  What sort of
scanner should I be looking for?

So, I'm sitting here with a roll of Ektachrome and a roll of Kodacolor.
Somewhere in town one of those little computer stores must be willing to rent
me a few minutes of scanner time (on who knows what equipment).  What's the
next step?

Thanks in advance for advice and comments, and apologies if I've overlooked
some basic principle like the ability to hook my 35mm camera to the serial
port... :o)

-- 
Jonathan C. Rice    | Internet: rice@cray.com
Cray Research, Inc. | UUCP:   uunet!cray!rice
655F Lone Oak Drive | (612) 683 - 5370       
Eagan, MN  55121    |                        

diana@er.Arco.Com (Diana Sparks) (03/16/91)

In article <9103132030.AA21462@willow23.cray.com>, rice@WILLOW.CRAY.COM (Jonathan Rice) writes:
> Here's a novice question for you:
> 
> I'd like to take a photograph of some people, and include it in a DTP'ed
> document. [stuff deleted]
> 
> What I haven't a clue about is how to go from camera to disk.  Do I shoot
> negative or positive film?  If negative, do I work from the neg or from a
> print?  If the photograph is in color, is it better to scan it in color and
> dither or halftone it on the 'puter, or to scan it as grey? 

Well, depends on what kind of results you want, and how you are 
going to have your DTP'ed doc printed.  IF you are doing a 'quick-
and-dirty' rendition of a newsletter, etc., that you will have 
offset printed/copied, and don't want to spend much $$, grey-
scale would be the way to go.  You don't necessarily have to have
a black & white photo however.  I recently used a color Polaroid 
(yep, instant photo), scanned it in as grayscale on my Microtek 
grayscale scanner, edited it in Digital Darkroom, and used it 
in a publication.  It looked just about as good as the 35mm 
B&W stuff I have scanned.  This was just a copied job, however.

Color and 3-color separations are a whole different matter, and 
much too complicated to go into here.  If you do want to 
do color work, your best bet would probably be to find a print 
shop that does computerized color work and let them do the 
scanning, separations, etc., for you, and then have them 
insert the file at print time.  

> What sort of scanner should I be looking for?

There are some DTP services and copy shops that will do scanning 
for a fee--any 8-bit grayscale scanner would do.  Some do a little 
better job than others; apple's scanners impress me more than the 
Microtek I've got, but it is perfectly acceptable most of the time.

                        

-- 
$ banner
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>><>>>>>>>>>><<<<<
<><>  Diana Sparks-->>                 diana@er.arco.com <><><
<><>  "This is very simple: first you access your mainframe...
<><>  or "on" to the computer illiterate." The Wizard: 'Shoe'.
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>><>>>>>>>>>><<<<<
$