Why do Pics look bad on Front Page?

[skyforme]

Hi, this mystery has had me stumped for a long time. Why is it that I can scan a pic and it looks fine, crop and edit in Microsft photo editor-still looks ok, but as soon as I put it on Front page the picture looks fuzzy, pixelated and basically terrible? Is it my scanner, Photo Editor or Front Page? What can I do to improve the situation? If it is my scanner-any suggestions on which ones are best for use on websites? I noticed other sites with very clear pictures on them so I know it's possible! Any help will be greatly appreciated.  

[soybean]

Doesn't make sense.  What do your pics look like if you open them in Internet Explorer?  Should look the same as in FP.  How are putting the pics into FrontPage?  Copy and paste; or Insert, Picture, From File?  If you right click on a pic in FrontPage and select Picture Properties, what settings do you see there?  What file format are you using for pics?  .jpg, .gif, etc?

[Dilbert]

Can you please post a screenshot of the distortion? (Print Screen, Ctrl-V in Paint, Save As.)

[skyforme]

Yes, tell me about it not making sense.  It does not matter if I copy or cut, paste or use Insert. The picture still looks bad on FrontPage. I am saving them as jpg. My scans always look good in the scanner software, but once again, bad in Frontpage and then on my website...    :-?

[T-Chai]

Instead of Copying and paste why dont save as picture first and then go to FP and insert picture
Or use some software that let you edit the picture and save them in a different formatt

[Rob Pomeroy]

FrontPage sucks.  Try >NVu<, which by the way is free.

[skyforme]

I'm looking into NVU...thanks for that. Has anyone else had problems with FrontPage pics looking bad? If anyone can help-please e-mail me at [email protected] and I will let you know what the web address is-I'd rather not post it here. I had trouble posting  a screen shot as I do not use Paint. Thanks for any help-it will be handy knowing what the problem is before I go spend money on a new scanner etc... :-?

[dl65]

 skyforme..... Lets have a go at this again .......
When you scan these pictures ......... what settings are you using on your scanner .........?
Resolution ........ ?

If you use a digital image and copy that image into Front Page is is ok ?

I use Front Page all the time and I have never had any issues when scanning a photo.

Can you post a example of one of the fuzzy images ...by taking a screen shot ..... or give us your website address and we can look .


dl65  

[skyforme]

Hi,
I usually use a 300 dpi when scanning photos from a catalog. I've tried 600 and even 1200 dpi and it made the file too big, made no difference in quality (on the website) or the image would be "tilted". I have some pics that I have "lifted" from other websites that look ok. If you'd like to see some examples of the poor picture quality here is a link to the website's worst offenders:

http://www.trinitytack.com/headstall.htm  
                
                           or

http://www.trinitytack.com/BroncRidingGear.htm

The digital copies seem to be ok...The first link is headstalls and they came out the worst as the picture provided to me in the catalog was small.

Thanks for any help!

[dl65]

 skyforme......  Ok , I have had a look at the images in question .......
Here's what I think ........ There's nothing wrong with Front Page ......... It isnt causing this ....... ( I think its the source ) ...the catalogues ......
Unless the catalogue image is great quality to start with theres not a whole lot you can do about it other than play around with your scanner settings.........
or possibly look for another scanner driver . I have scanned 1000s of images from catalogues ........ But it took a lot of playing around to get a good image quality out ....... I use a resolution of 72 DPI to keep the file size small......set the scanner to 200 or 300 % ....and then use photoshop to reduce the image size to what I wanted . ( I found that would give me a acceptable image )  Have you tried using differant formats ......gif or tff .

What kind of a scanner are you using ?
What Twain ?

Is it possible to contact the people who produce the catalogue........ because you may be able to obtain a cd with the images and the quality issue will be resolved.  ( I did this on several occasions when I was building a website for a clock retailer .........)  

dl65  

[dl65]

 skyforme......  One final thing we can look at is ........
Open the file that contains the scanned images ....(before you put them into Front Page .......) Pick any one of them ......... then take a screen shot of it .....using paint and save it onto your desktop ......... then use the attach option here and post it for us to see .....that will confirm my thoughts.

dl65  

[skyforme]

I couldn't figure out how to send a screenshot, but here is the latest of the bad pics. I don't use paint-I'm used to Photo Editor. I do most of my editing there and some of it in my scanner's program. I use a Lexmark P6250. It's almost like something gets "refracted" once it goes from the scanner, to Photo Editor to FrontPage. I save all pics in jpg format.
By the way-I DID scan this same pic again and sent it to Paint and it looked even worse. Had "rainbows" going through it. The pic I attatched here is the better of the two using Phot Editor.

[skyforme]

Guess everyone gave up on this one. Thanks anyway.

[Rob Pomeroy]

There are two possible reasons for this, I think.  Either moiré effect or defective scanner.  The moiré effect can be reduced quite simply: do a very high resolution effect, then blur the resultant image, then reduce to the desired size.  For web purposes, you will rarely need image dimensions beyond 800 pixels.