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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
T e c h n o f i l e
Q&A on digital photos: Viewing images in e-mail, OCR on a Mac, JPEG questions and more
Oct. 9, 2005
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2005, The Post-Standard
It's time to catch up with the mail. I've received a lot of questions about digital photography lately, so this week I'll answer the most popular ones.
Q: Sometimes the photos sent in e-mail are so huge that I can't view them without scrolling around. Is there a way to get around this? Are the people who send pictures to me doing something wrong?
A: The problem's on the receiving end. You need a good image viewer if your mail software doesn't automatically resize photos for optimum viewing. A good (and free) viewer for Windows is Irfan View, from www.irfanview.com. Apple's OS X Macintoshes have an excellent viewer built into iPhoto, which comes from with modern Macs. You'll find tips on choosing an image viewer in previous Technofile articles. Check the Imaging section of my site at http://technofileonline/imaging.html.
Q: I followed your recommendation and bought a Mac but can't find software that allows me to do OCR with my scanner. I did it with the same scanner when I used Windows. What gives?
A: Optical character recognition software translates scanned text into text that can be manipulated in a word processor. An inexpensive way to get OCR capabilities for Macs, Windows and Linux PCs is to use VueScan, an excellent all-purpose scanner program, from www.hamrick.com. You can try it for free.
VueScan is much more than an OCR program; its photo scanning abilities are superb. The standard version costs $49.95; a "pro" version, with added features, costs $89.95. For a list of supported scanners, go to www.hamrick.com/vuescan/vuescan.htm#supported
Q: My camera takes pictures in the JPEG format. I heard a talk you gave in which you said we should not use JPEG because the quality deteriorates when pictures are saved. How can I get around this problem?
A: JPEG (or JPG) images save file-storage space because the JPEG method takes out many of the lesser details in pictures. The first time this is done -- when your camera takes a photo -- the loss in quality might be almost undetectable. But if you save a JPEG image repeatedly when editing or cropping it, you'll blur the details for sure. As soon as you get JPEGs from your camera, convert them to a non-damaging (or "lossless") format such as TIF, BMP or PNG and use those copies from that point on. (To convert images In Windows, use Irfan View; on an OS X Mac, use iPhoto's "Export" function.)
Q: At a church event recently, someone showed a slide show of pictures on a DVD player, but the disk was a CD that had pictures on it. How is this done? Where can I buy a player that will do that?
A: Most newer DVD players can show JPEG photos one at a time in a slide show. Put a few dozen JPEGs on a CD and see if your DVD player can show them. If it can't, take the disk to a store that sells DVD players and try it out there. New DVD players that can show JPEGs don't have to cost much; prices usually start at less than $50.
Q: I have what is supposed to be a good printer for photos, but my pictures come out looking like they were part of a day-school project. I'm using the manufacturer's ink cartridges and my settings are correct. What am I doing wrong?
A: You might have to try different paper. HP, Canon and Lexmark printers usually work fine with most kinds of glossy photo paper, but Epson printers seldom do; for an Epson, you should choose from Epson's list of recommended papers first.
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