EQ6 - Scanning Fabrics Part 1

For image preparation, I use my Dell desktop computer with its TV type monitor (I like its clarity).  I use an hp Scanjet 3500c scanner.  My operating system is Windows XP and my imaging editing program is an older version of Paint Shop Pro (8.1 - still owned by Jasc). The newest PSP version, X2, is on my laptop since it works with Vista. All the information I offer in this tutorial is applicable to X2 and to other editing programs.  Let's get started by opening and reading page 139 in the EQ6 manual.  Believe me, it will all start making sense as you go through this tutorial.

We first need to reset PSP's default resolution.  By default, the resolution in PSP version is 200 pixels/inch (this version and X2). We will be scanning at a low resolution and want to set that same low resolution in PSP. So, following the image above, go to File (1) on the menu bar, on the drop-down menu go to Preferences (2), and in the fly-out menu click on General Program Preferences (2). When the dialog box appears, click on the Units tab (3), go over to the right and change the default resolution to 72 pixels/inch.


Take your fabric which is now pressed and wrinkle free and place it in your scanner.  Click on the Scanner Button (1) on the menu bar (make sure your scanner and PSP are talking to each other).  When my scanner dialog box appears, I make the following selections (2): I set the colour adjustment to Original Colour (based on experience); I set the resolution to 75 (my scanner's lowest offering and this will be further reduced in PSP because we changed the default setting); and I click on Descreen for the reason explained in the EQ6 manual. When you are satisfied with the preview, click Accept and this will bring your fabric image into PSP.

You can use your scanner preview to straighten your fabric before the final accepting and you can do the fine tuning in PSP. I will zoom in on the fabric and then click the Straighten Tool (1) on the left hand toolbar.  If you can't see the Straighten Tool, click on the black arrow next to the second button and select it from the fly-out menu.  Hover over the tool's end squares, left click, hold and move the squares until you have the line following the portion of pattern you have selected (2).  When satisfied, click the Apply Button (3) and PSP will do the work.

We are now going to crop our image to the pattern repeat. We click on the Crop Tool (1) on the left hand toolbar. You will have to left click, hold and drag across the image to get the crop tool box.  It doesn't matter what size you make the box because you can adjust all four sides by hovering over them till you get the double arrow, click, hold and adjust. You can see in the image (2) above that the red arrows show the pattern repeat points I have chosen. You may find zooming in on the image makes the adjusting easier. When satisfied, click on the Apply Button (that check mark) and you will have cropped to your pattern repeat. Now, you want to save this image using your editing program's file format; but, don't close the image.

Now, because we are using a photo editing program, we can check our cropping accuracy. When we put our little fabric swatch into EQ6, the program will convert it to what is called a 'seamless tile'. Web designers use seamless tiles to make backgrounds for websites. The background on this blog, on my shopping cart and on my website are all seamless tiles I made from Jo Morton fabric scans. So, we are going to take our cropped fabric and open up the Seamless Tile Effect. Click on Effects (1) on the menu bar, go to Image Effects (2) on the drop down menu and click on Seamless Tiling (2) in the menu fly-out. The Seamless Tile dialog box will open.  You will not change any of the settings; however, you will click in the Show Tiling Preview box (see red arrow). When the Tiling Preview box opens, you will click in the Show Original box and also increase the zoom to 100%. Now, left click and hold in this preview box window and a 'hand' will appear which you can use to move the fabric image around. Is the pattern repeating without strong lines, overlapping images, and/or breaks? If it is a solid, even image that looks like your piece of original fabric, then you have done a good crop and you can close the seamless tile box by clicking on the red cross on the top right hand corner. If you don't like what you see, close the dialog box, undo your cropping, try it again and then retest with the Seamless Tile Effect.

The next step is to convert the image to a .jpeg.  You can do this quickly with the Web Toolbar. To open it, go to View>Toolbars>click on Web on the fly-out menu. Click on the JPEG Button (1) and the JPEG Optimizer dialog box (2) will open. Set the compression value to 20 and the chroma subsampling to what you see in the image above by clicking on the black arrow and choosing the first line in the drop-down menu. With the JPEG Optimizer, we are performing a 'lossy compression' of the image and you can see the impact on the file size by looking at the two red arrows under the dialog box images. Now, click OK and save your .jpeg to a file folder. That completes the process for scanning and preparing your fabric images for EQ6. Of course, the true test of success is to move your fabric image into EQ6 and that will be my next tutorial. Here below is my newly created    27 KB Jo Morton fabric swatch uploaded into EQ6 and used in a quilt. Beautiful!!