Frequently Asked Questions

Printing and Saving Photos From the Web

Q.  How do I print a photo?
A. Unfortunately, printing off the webpage is not that straight forward.  Photos are rarely the right size and will either be too small or too large and cropped.  The latest Internet Explorer (IE 7.0 above) has a handy "Print Preview option which allows you to shrink or grow the picture to your requirements.  Firefox and Mac's and users, consult your browser Help files.
 

Q.  How do I save a photo?
A. Place your curser over picture, right click and choose "Save Picture As".  Choose or create a folder on your hard drive or memory stick. 
Incidentally, this method is also ideal for printing if you have graphics software capable of resizing the image. 

Emailing Photos & Text

Q. Where do I email photographs?
A. louis@baydee.com

Q. Any restrictions on the size of files?
A. Nope. I have broadband access and no limits on email file size, however you should note that many servers limit mail around 5 Megs.

Q. What's the best way to email you photographs?
A. Send them to me saved as JPG (JPEG) files, that's the most common format. I can handle most file formats, so if you do not have JPG, send them in any format convenient to you.

Q. What's the best way to email text ?
A. Text passages such as found in  Vox Populi, The Whittingehamian etc. are best scanned and saved in GIF format.  JPG files give poor  results. Many scanners offer pdf format which will also do.  Where available, scan text in between the values of 75 to 100 dpi (dots per inch).

Q. Should the photos be accompanied by details?
A. Yes. Please indicate the year the photo was taken, where and if possible, people in the picture.

Scanning Photos

Q. I'd like to scan some photos and send them to you. What size and resolution do you need?
A. Scan in 16 million colours(32 bit) , or 256 shades of gray for black and white. Scan as a photo. If your scanner software does not permit you to select the dpi (dots per inch), then simply choose "best" resolution. When saving JPG files, please try not to use more than about 15% compression.  Highly compressed JPG files give poor results and I cannot recover the quality.

Q. My original picture is fairly dark. Should I adjust the brightness on the scanner?
A. No! Please do not manipulate or touch-up the scanned images (sharpen, brighten, colour, etc.). Set the scanner to auto-exposure to provide the optimum reproduction of the original..  I have good reasonable tools to do any adjustments, so I'll do all that at my end.

Q. How do I scan panoramic pictures?
A. These are best scanned in segments and then email the individual pictures to me. I will "stitch" them together. Please ensure that the segments OVERLAP. This will allow me to optimize the stitch and will avoid "loosing" anyone off the picture. Also, please ensure that the individual segments are aligned. It's difficult to get a good stitch if the segments are not parallel. Sliding the panoramic picture along a straight edge (e.g. ruler taped to the scanner) does the trick

Q. I do not have a scanner. How can I send you pictures?
A. Two choices:
1. Get someone else to scan and save them on a CD, DVD or memory stick.  Email them to me as an attachment.
2. Go to your local computer store, library, high school, university, Internet Cafe or your company/business and ask someone to scan the pictures and email them directly to me. Most of the aforementioned places are fully equipped and are capable of doing a good job. You might want to print out this page to provide them with the scanning instructions.

Q. I don't want to send my valuable pictures through the mail. How can I get them into the album?
A. Three choices:
1.  Bring them along to the next Whittingehame reunion.  I'm usually there with a scanner.
2. You can get a picture made of the picture. Most photographic stores have the capabilities to do so. The reproductions are not as good as the original, but fairly close. Also, you will usually get a negative which will permit you to make further copies at a later date. If you have a lot of pictures, this could get expensive.
3. Photocopy. Some of the larger commercial photocopying outlets can produce acceptable duplicates.

Q. I'll send you the pictures, but how long do you need to hang on to them?
A. Very little time. I can scan a dozen pictures in an hour and have them back in the mail to you the next day.