EQ6 - Scanning Fabrics Part 1 - Revisited

Last week, I sat down to begin scanning my fabrics using the steps outlined in my 'Scanning Fabrics Part 1' tutorial. The fabric line I chose was 'Crimson & Clover' and since they have relatively small prints with a small pattern repeat I knew my cropped images would be small. Well, when I scanned the fabric at 75 dpi (my scanner's lowest setting), I was unhappy with the visual qualiy of the resulting image. I am not sure why the 75 dpi wasn't working; perhaps, it was due to the lighter fabrics, or the uniformity of the pattern repeat and size, or just an idiosyncrasy of my scanner. I decied to increase the dpi to 100 (the next level available on my scanner) and this worked much better. Howver, with the image open in Paint Shop Pro, I made a discovery which is why I need to make a revision to my Part 1 tutorial.


Let's begin by pointing out that when you select a tool from Paint Shop Pro's left hand toolbar, a new toolbar will appear directly above the worktable. This new toolbar is specific to the tool you have selected and offers the means to make setting choices that will affect the way the tool behaves. This toolbar information comes into play shortly.

Before I scanned my fabric, I set the default resolution in PSP to 72 pixels/inch as explained in the original tutorial. When I scanned my fabric at 100 dpi, I assumed that it would open in PSP at 72 ppi - well, it did not; instead, it opened at 100 ppi. I discovered this when I went to crop the image to the pattern repeat. On the crop toolbar that opened above the worktable, you are given your image's resolution; it is the only toolbar that I can think off that gives you this information. I didn't pick up on this when I first wrote the tutorial perhaps confusing my 75s & 72s. So why did it show a resolution of 100? Well, let's look again at that first image from Part 1.

Notice what is written below the default resolution setting box: "The default resolution will be applied to any image or file without a reolution value." The PSP 72 ppi setting wasn't used because my fabric image from the scanner had a resolution value - 100 dpi. (Perhaps PSP's default setting would come into play with downloaded camera images) Therefore, in sum, whatever dpi you scan your fabric at the image will be given that resolution value in ppi in Paint Shop Pro regardless of the default resolution setting set in General Program Preferences.

I proceeded to crop to the fabric pattern repeat as described in Part 1. However, I still wanted to get the file size down if possible so I decided to 'resize' my image to 72 pixels/inch (this is acually referred to as 'downsampling'). With my image open and cropped, I headed to the top menu bar and clicked on 'Image' and then clicked on 'Resize' in the drop down menu to get the Resize dialog box.

When I work on images in Paint Shop Pro, there are three palettes (image #2) that I tend to keep open on the right side of the worktable: Materials, Overview, and Layers. I use the Overview a lot and move between its Preview and Info tabs constantly. On the Info tab in the image above, I am told that my cropped image is 78 x 96 pixels in size and is at a resolution of 100 ppi with a file size of 31.69 KB. That information can also be seen at the top of the Resize dialog box. Before I lower the resolution, I want to make sure that I have certain items set at the bottom of the dialog box. Here, I tick the 'Resample using' box, the 'Lock aspect ratio' box and the 'Resize all layers'. Now, there are different methods that can be used to Resample and you can see these on a drop down menu beside 'Resample using'. I have chosen 'Smart Size' which means I am letting PSP decide the best way to handle the image's pixels when I change the resolution.

I now head back up to the 'Pixel Dimensions' box and in the greyed width box I am going to enter the image width value of 78. Because I checked off the 'Locked aspect ratio' below, the image height will automatically set itself to 96. Now, I move down to the 'Print Size' box and change the resolution to 72 pixels/ inch and click 'Okay" at the bottom of the dialog box. The resolution change from 100 to 72 is done.

You will find, however, that whenever you downsample there is a blurring of the image. To correct this, I head to the top menu bar and click on Adjust>Sharpness>Sharpen. The image is now ready to be converted to a .jpeg as explained in Part 1.

So, here are the basic steps:

• Fabric scanned at 100 dpi (dots per inch)
• Fabric image opens in PSP at resolution of 100 ppi (pixels per inch)
• Crop image to pattern repeat
• Resize image (downsample) to a resolution of 72 ppi
• Sharpen image
• Convert to a .jpeg

I have decided that I will scan all my fabric at the 100 dpi setting and resize to 72 pixels/inch in PSP. It will be much easier to remember just the one setting for scanning and I am very happy with my final .jpeg file size.

My very last step is to write this information in a small spiral notebook I keep beside my computer. I have come to realize I will never remember settings unless I am doing them over and over again on a regular basis. In my notebook, I have written down the different image sizes I have used in my shopping cart, have made notes on how I have labelled images for the cart, have noted the colours I have used for image borders, backgrounds, etc. A few minutes spent now is much better than a few hours later trying to remember settings used in the past.