A
lot of my pictures have buildings that aren’t straight. Is there
a way to correct this in the computer?
Glen Brown
Rockford, Illinois
Most image-processing programs offer some sort of perspective control.
Jasc Paint Shop Pro offers a Perspective tool in the toolbar. Adobe products
include a perspective adjustment in the Transform part of the menu (Photoshop
also allows you to adjust perspective using the Crop tool). Check your
help menu in other programs to locate the Perspective tools.
Here’s how the Transform tool works, for example. First, your image
has to be on a layer (if you don’t know layers, go to Layer>Duplicate
Layer as a good starting point). The Transform tools are found either
under the Edit or Image menus; go to Transform>Perspective. By enabling
this menu item, you’re given control points or handles on the edges
of your image (they look like tiny round circles).
If the building is leaning toward you, grab the top-left or top-right
control point and drag it to the outside of your image. (It helps to expand
your canvas so you have room to work.) This adjustment will seemingly
bring the upper portion of the image toward you. By using the other control
points, you can correct for buildings that are leaning left or right.
You’ll find the control works well if you play with it a little.
Once you make the adjustment, you’ll need to crop the image to get
rid of the slanted edges. In addition, you may need to stretch or compress
your image if the corrected building starts looking too short and squat
or too tall and thin.
Waiting For My Prints To Come
I
have an Epson Stylus Photo 1280, along with a new computer—512 RAM,
P4 three-gig processor, etc. The problem I’m having is that I can
only do one print at a time, and can’t queue the job. I’m
using Windows XP Business Edition
Roy Elahi
Via e-mail
In order
to queue print jobs on a computer, you have to enable print spooling,
a method by which your computer doesn’t send your file to the printer
directly. Instead, it sends the file to your hard disk and then parcels
out the file to your printer as a “background process” of
your operating system. This setup allows you to continue working on other
files without having to wait for your printer to finish printing.
Normally, this is a default setting. However, here’s how to turn
on print spooling: From the Start menu, go to Control Panel and double-click
Printers and Faxes. Right-click on your printer, select Properties from
the menu and then select the Advanced tab. Now it’s just a matter
of selecting the option “Spool print documents so program finishes
printing faster.”
You also have the option to “Start printing immediately” or
“Start printing after last page is spooled.” I like to wait
until all pages are spooled because it gives me a chance to cancel a print
job if I’ve made a mistake. Otherwise, the first print starts printing
right away and I can only cancel the second print.
Inflating File Sizes
I
don’t understand what’s happening with my digital camera image
files. Whether I shoot in Normal mode, producing a picture file size of
about 680 KB, or in Fine mode, producing a picture of about 1100 KB, the
opened document size is always the same, 9.0 MB. Shouldn’t the picture
shot in the Fine mode contain more information and therefore be a larger-sized
document?
Richard
Steinfeld
Watchung, New Jersey
File
sizes from the modes you’re choosing are related to picture compression,
i.e., how much the larger 9 MB file is compressed into a smaller file
size. Normal mode is more compressed than Fine mode. Normal compression
technology represents the image as something other than a pixel-by-pixel
definition of the image. Although the pixel count between the two images
is technically equivalent, the compression scheme makes one file smaller
as it comes from the camera.
When you open the file in any imaging program, the file is uncompressed,
so that you’re working in a non-compressed environment strictly
based on the number of pixels in the final image. The final number of
pixels in each image is then the same (you set that on your digital camera),
so the file size is the same.
Image compression is a very smart way of dealing with pixels (duplicates
are removed), but higher compression levels can cause problems in reconstructing
the image. The end result is that very small detail can be affected in
the amount of compression used, which is why the manufacturer labels one
level of compression “Fine.” The amount of compression doesn’t
change the final file size in either mode.
Driving Partitions
When
I bought my computer six years ago, it had a then-enormous 8 GB hard drive,
which arrived partitioned into four “separate” drives. I’m
ready to buy a new computer and, since I plan to edit video, I want to
buy the fastest, biggest everything, including a whopping 200 GB hard
drive. Your articles suggest a second hard drive for storing video footage
while editing.
Do I need a physically separate hard drive? Can the 200 GB drive be partitioned?
The manufacturer of the computer I’m leaning toward offers a RAID
0 system that controls two hard drives (120 GBs each), so they work together
as one 240 GB drive.
Linda
Ingles
Metairie, Louisiana
Not that
long ago, operating systems weren’t able to deal with large hard
drives. They had to be partitioned so the file systems would work properly.
Now, modern operating systems (Windows XP and Mac OS 9/OS X) have caught
up and are fully capable of addressing larger hard drives. As far as partitioning
is concerned, a partition doesn’t give you the performance increase
that a separate drive does. You asked about improved performance for video.
A separate physical drive is a better option.
I still like to partition large hard drives for organization. I put the
operating system on one partition, applications on another, utilities
on another, and all of my documents on yet another. I also use partitioning
as a precaution and possibly to save myself some trouble. If I lose a
partition, I won’t lose all the data on the drive. (Of course, if
the drive fails, I’m out of luck.)
I also use partitions to help with building removable media. For example,
I have partitions that are the size of a CD-R, DVD-R, a USB drive and
a Zip disk. I let the operating system tell me when the drive is “full”
and then I start burning the discs.
RAID 0 (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Discs) will give you higher speed
performance from the disc pair. Think of RAID 0 as writing your data in
parallel on both discs. The downside is that if you lose one disc, you’ll
lose all your data.
Keeping All Your Pixels
In
the December 2003 issue, a question was asked about saving a Name.JPEG
as Name1.JPEG to keep from over-compressing the file and losing too much
detail. If you open a JPEG file in Photoshop and then save it as a Photoshop
file, or a TIFF, will you maintain detail (pixels) and avoid recompression?
Dan
Stiegler
Via e-mail
When you
open the JPEG-compressed file in any program, you’re not decreasing
image quality. If you always then save to the program file (such as a
.psd file for Photoshop) or TIFF, you avoid recompression. This is the
best method to use to retain quality in an image. This process changes
the file type (as it’s no longer a compressed file), but it doesn’t
change what’s in the image.
If you have any questions, please send them to HelpLine, PCPhoto
Magazine, 12121 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90025 or
[email protected].Visit
our Website at www.pcphotomag.com
for past HelpLine columns.
A
lot of my pictures have buildings that aren’t straight. Is there
a way to correct this in the computer?
Most image-processing programs offer some sort of perspective control.
Jasc Paint Shop Pro offers a Perspective tool in the toolbar. Adobe products
include a perspective adjustment in the Transform part of the menu (Photoshop
also allows you to adjust perspective using the Crop tool). Check your
help menu in other programs to locate the Perspective tools. 
