Help with coin images please...

DAM · November 26, 2003 11:03PM

What software do you use to crop coin images? I've got Adobe Photoshop 7 and can't quite get done what I want.

I've heard some say their software has a semi-circle cropping tool that does the job.

FC57Coins · November 26, 2003 11:05PM

I have paintshop pro 6 and Lview Pro - both work great for cropping - you can get Lview Pro as shareware.

airplanenut · November 27, 2003 12:52AM

I just switched to PS7... it's great. What exactly are you trying to do?

MacCoin · November 27, 2003 1:06AM

paintshop

stujoe · November 27, 2003 1:33AM

I use MS Photo Editor (comes with Office, I believe) to crop and

http://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/zd_dev/accelerate.htm

to reduce file size.

I occasionally use an old version of MS Picture It! to automatically adjust white balance when needed and it is also good for doing cutouts.

DAM · November 27, 2003 1:35AM

<< <i>I just switched to PS7... it's great. What exactly are you trying to do? >>

I want to remove all but the coin itself from pics.

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 1:52AM

Cosmicdebris (Bill) did this one for me. How it was done I have no clue but would like to find out along with you.

Whoa ! It shows up differently than what is seen in the registry set. No white shows at all there. Hmmmm.

Ken

shylock · November 27, 2003 1:52AM

Dam - PhotoShop 7.0 is what I use. In ImageReady you can only crop squares, but in Photoshop if you right click on the cropping tool ("marquee tool" on upper left) you'll see an elliptical cropping tool. A menu bar opens on the top when you choose it giving you different cropping "styles". Choose "fixed aspect ratio" to make a perfect circle.

I recommend first cropping the coin as close as possible to its edges using the square tool (in fixed aspect ratio, which makes a perfect square). This makes it easier to then drag the elliptical tool perfectly over the coin.

DAM · November 27, 2003 2:58AM

Thanks Paul. I'll give that a try this weekend when I have some time.

Dan

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 2:59AM

Paul

Thanks for the information. I have got that far now but I cannot save the image or even get it out of photo shop. I'm stuck again.

Ken

jom · November 27, 2003 3:03AM

I'm not sure what your problem is there Ken, but I've noticed that when you do something to a pic in Photoshop it creates another layer. To save as a JPEG you have to "flatten" the picture first THEN you can save it as a JPEG. I don't know if this helps....

jom

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 3:06AM

Off to Photo Shop again.

Thank You.

Ken

stujoe · November 27, 2003 4:01AM

Whoa ! It shows up differently than what is seen in the registry set. No white shows at all there. Hmmmm

Your Merc is in jpg format and I don't think jpg's can do transparent backgrounds which is why the white shows up. Here it is in gif format with transparency.

However, it is about twice the size because gifs don't compress like jpgs.

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 4:52AM

Stujoe

Thats Cool and sure makes the coin look like it really does. I must work on this.

Thanks.
Ken

DAM · November 27, 2003 7:00AM

Well, let's see if this works... it worked in the preview.

I hope to start adding pics to most of my sets as soon as I learn to size them.

Thanks for the help. I'm sure I'll be asking for some more soon.

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 7:19AM

And here is what I came up with. More work is needed.

Thanks to all for the help and to Dam for asking the question.

Ken

shylock · November 27, 2003 8:30AM

As Stujoe said only gifs can be saved with transparent backgrounds. Jpegs default to a white background but you can change it to black or any other background color you prefer. I don't think gifs preserve as much resolution as jpegs, though Stujoe's pic looks great so maybe I'm wrong about that. And jpegs can be adjusted before saving to get them below the 50K limit using the Quality toggle switch in the Jpeg Size box that pops up.

stujoe · November 27, 2003 8:55AM

<< <i>I don't think gifs preserve as much resolution as jpegs, though Stujoe's pic looks great so maybe I'm wrong about that. >>

I was as surprised as you about that. It didn't seem to lose much and gifs often do come out looking funny compared to jpg's. Dunno why it didn't this time.

mgoodm3 · November 27, 2003 10:20AM

I believe jpg's are smaller with white backgrounds. Darker pics take up more room for whatever reason.

Rob85635 · November 27, 2003 11:13AM

How do you get two images right next to each other? Can it be done with Adobe Photoshop elements? I always have to save two images when I do obv/rev of a coin.

Rob the Newbie

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 11:26AM

Rob

Mine was done in Adobe Photo Shop. The drop down menu at the top left has Photomerge as one of the options. Just click on it and select two of your images and the click OK at the bottom and stuff will start to happen. You have to put them in position and then click OK, I think it is, up at the top left. Then you have to save it to your files. Remember that the limit size wise is 50 KB for the forum.

Ken

Barry · November 27, 2003 11:26AM

Rob,
Open a new window (CTL-N) setting the background to white, and size it a little bigger than what you need, so you have room for the 2 pics. For example, if each pic is 400x400 pixels, make the new window 1000x500. Crop each of the 2 pics. Highlight and Select (CTL-A) the obverse first. Then, use the Move command and just drag it into the new window. Next, highlight and Select the reverse, and drag that one into the new window, next to the obverse. Go to Selections pulldown and click on Flatten image. You can now close the original 2 pics. Crop the new pic and do whatever else (levels, etc.) to adjust the pic.

shylock · November 27, 2003 11:42AM

Rob -

A simpler way to combine the obverse & reverse, and lets say the size of each is 300 x 300 pixels:

After you've cropped both sides of the coin, and with both still on the Photoshop screen, click the View menu on the upper left and choose New. Choose the Transparent option and make the Width 600 and the Height 300. A blank window will pop up whose dimensions are 600 x 300. Then just drag each of your images into it and save it. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any problems.

Paul

DAM · November 27, 2003 1:44PM

Ok, here's where I'm having trouble in PS; I've got an obverse JPEG image with Dimensions of 1438 x 1888 and Size of 414kb. How do I down size that image to 50kb or less without distorting the image? The image is a scan. Should I rescan?

Here's another question, how do you get a HUGE image, like some members post, under 50kb?

This is a GREAT help and I wish I had asked a year ago.

USMC_6115 · November 27, 2003 2:56PM

You should be able to go to image/resize and put in the percent of the size you want. I just keep doing that and saving it until it's the size that I want. It's also got the resolution settings there make it larger. I'm new at this too, so I could be wrong.

DAM · November 27, 2003 11:18PM

Oh my! This might be too big. A recent aquisition for my type sets.

I'm starting to get a handle on this now. Thanks to all that helped! A big YDM (You duh Man) award too all!!!!

Fairlaneman · November 27, 2003 11:55PM

DAM

Thats BIG but it shows up nicely on the computer screen.

Here is another image after receiving the help yesterday. Got rid of the white background.

Ken

cosmicdebris · November 28, 2003 12:36AM

You guys are doing great. For those of you with Photo Shop may I suggest their classroom in a book series. It is a project based lesson by lesson on how to use Photo Shop. A lot of great tekniques can be learned from this book.

JMOORE · November 28, 2003 5:47AM

Photoshop 7

Help with coin images please...

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