Hints & Tips
These competitions are sponsored by Dave Cawley and Paul Hayes.
We originally started the competitions September 1999, the idea was to compare images taken from various parts of the UK this would then help in research and development of better systems.
We have had many request to open the competitions to other parts of the globe, after recent discussions between Dave and Myself we have decided to make the future competitions OPEN TO THE WORLD.
The competitions have become quite popular, the entrants have increased progressively, so we will need to have some sort of size limit on the images.
We have decided that a maximum size of 300KB is reasonable, Dave will keep the originals and also forward them to me, I will then resize and compress to about 150KB this is to allow quicker viewing of the images, the thumbnails will be about 10KB, we have no idea of how many entrants we can expect, we did consider having a system where anybody who intended entering the competition would inform us say a couple of days before the competition but we have decided to play it by ear as they say.
For those of you that are experienced with resizing and jpegging images then remember 300KB maximum, for those of you who are not sure then I have decided to do a STEP-BY-STEP guide, please see below.
I think the majority of people use Paint Shop Pro! so I will use it for this guide, most packages will be similar but if not then perhaps somebody else may want to do a guide for the package they use?
What another guide! I hear you say, well I hope I am improving with practice?
I will use the KISS format so if it gets boring jump ahead a bit.
I know their are umpteen ways to do the same thing but if you stick with me then you should not get confused and you can then experiment to your hearts content.
Firstly acquire the image you want to work on (no not Kate Moss no it's only a rumour that she is Julian's ex) using whatever satellite decoding software you choose, remember where you saved it!
1: Open Windows Explorer now find the image you saved, check to see that the view you are looking at gives details, if not then click on the VIEW menu and select details, when you have details showing you should have columns showing NAME, SIZE, TYPE, MODIFIED, check what size the image is?
2: Lets assume the image is 3,000KB (3MEG) in Paint Shop Pro Image format, it doesn't really matter what the present format is, we will be changing it to JPEG
3: Now open Paint Shop Pro
4: Go to FILE (top left) then OPEN (second down) note the yellow looking folder thingy.
5: Now a dialog box should appear, where it says LOOK IN you should see a downward pointing arrow just before the upward pointing arrow, click on the downward pointing arrow and a drop down menu should appear, from here you can navigate to the place where you saved the Kate Moss image no sorry the satellite image.
6: Double click the previously saved image (go on then we will call it Kate Moss from no on it may help, especially those of us suffering from les than what we once had in memories) wouldn't it be good if we could upgrade with ram chips? right you can stop the waffle right now!
7: With any luck your image should now be showing in Paint Shop Pro?
8: Go to IMAGE menu (fourth from left on top menu bar) then RESIZE (seventh down)
9: The resize dialog box should now be showing? CLICK HERE for illustration, ensure your resize box looks like mine? so you should have a dot in the Percentage of Original, the Resize type should be Smart size, ensure their are ticks in both Resize All Layers and Maintain aspect ratio of ######### to 1, click OK.
10: lets just recap and explain exactly what we have done! we acquired the image, loaded it into Paint Shop Pro, and now we have just resized it to 70 percent of it's original size keeping the aspect ratio so the image does not look distorted, so now get the calculator, you don't need to but it may help you understand what's going on better, lets assume the original image was 3,000KB (3MEG) we made it smaller by 30 percent so 3,000 * 0.7 = 2,100, OK so we have a smaller image but still to big for sending over the internet, Read on.
11: We will now save it in JPEG format, this will compress the image and the quality will degrade slightly but we are all doing the same so everything is fair.
12: Go to FILE (top left) then Save As (seventh down) you should now have a Save As dialog box open CLICK HERE for illustration, where it says Save as type you can see a downward pointing arrow click this and a whole list of formats will drop down, select JPEG - JFIF Compliant (*.jpg,*.jpeg), in the File name type in test (this can be anything you want for now) this way you will still have the original intact, make a note of the Save in box at the top so you know where you are saving the image, I have made a new folder just for this exercise, now the bit that some miss at the bottom right you will see OPTIONS click on it and another dialog box will show CLICK HERE for illustration take the slider to about 30 then click OK then on the box that is now showing click Save.
13: OK if everything went to plan you should now have your image saved as a JPEG that should be considerably smaller in size than the original, my test image came down from 3,000KB to 300KB.
14: Experiment and have a few goes you will soon get the hang of it, remember you should still have the original image so you can experiment as often as you want deleting the images that you don't want.
If you are new to this then read through the guide a couple of times then go through it Step-by-Step if you find it hard going go and have a brew or something and come back to it later, if you get cracking soon then you should have time to perfect it before the next competition to be held on the ## April 2000
Sincere Regards
Paul Hayes
