This relates to this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=15427.0 Thanks to everyone who replied to that one.

I have nearly 100 images for Shoujo Story, all black and white line art. I had initially scanned everything in at 300dpi but in the book I got back from Lulu the pictures looked pretty grainy. I've started rescanning it all in again at 1200 dpi. Its a painfully slow process, I'm not even a third of the way through it. Already my Shoujo Story document is 176 meg and now won't save properly. I'm using Microsoft Publisher for layout.

Hopefully I don't even need to ask a question in this post. You're already snorting the coffee out your nose as you laugh my witless attempts to publish my game. Perhaps now your tears of laughter begin to blend with more piteous waters as you think "Poor bewildered sap, someone should put him down or help him out". And so now you crack your knuckles and start typing out something that will make sense of it all for me...

Thank you so very much,

Tony

After you scan the image, what you want to do is convert it to a bitmap. This will make the image purely b+W, no greys. Then, you save it as a TIFF with LZW compression. This will shrink the image to 5-10% of the uncompressed TIFF size.

If the files still aren't small enough, you can downgrade the image to 600 dpi. This, of course, will shrink the image to 25% of the 1200 dpi size.

You still want scan the images at 1200 dpi TIFF, uncompressed. You want to keep a backup of the highest quality possible. As they always say, you can always downgrade, but you can never upgrade quality.

Tim is absolutely correct in his description of the process.

-L

Note: I've not used Microsoft Publisher, ever. I've done lots with other layout programs, though.

First, slowness of scanning: yeah, it's slow. Can't be helped. 1200dpi, however, is definitely what you need for line art. Make sure your scanner is scanning a bw 2-color image, not grayscale or CMYK. Not only are most scanners unable to do the latter genuinely, they will also cause magnitudes larger image files. (I don't know the details of the project, but in some cases you can also use vector graphics instead of bitmaps, which are vastly more efficient with simple line art. That process starts with the artist, though, so you won't be benefiting from it in this project.) Also: do what Tim said.

Second, managing images: the proper method for laying out a large, illustrated document has you linking the images externally, to reduce the layout file size and free processing power. Most likely Microsoft Publisher allows for this, too. Look in the manual for the option of not including the image in the layout file, but instead just referring to it from somewhere outside. If these linkages are done correctly, the size of the layout file is not affected by the size or number of the images included, because the file only refers to the images instead of adding them into the layout file. However: the drawback of external linking is that if you move the image files or the layout file, the layout file loses track of where it should look for the images. The layout program probably allows you to point it to the right place in this circumstance.

Judging by the current size of the layout file, you probably have some image data in there. So try to find the option I outlined above, and see how that affects file size. Also check if the file saves properly after that. Meanwhile, we'll see if there's anybody who's worked with Microsoft Publisher around.

Also, depending on your scanning software and your relative degree of Photoshop Fu, you may be able to batch adjust all of your images. So you scan everything in first with good settings, then batch convert all the images at once. I know it's possible, but unfortunately I don't know the specifics. A search on 'photoshop batch' gave some promising results.

Good luck!

MDK

timfire wrote:
After you scan the image, what you want to do is convert it to a bitmap. This will make the image purely b+W, no greys. Then, you save it as a TIFF with LZW compression. This will shrink the image to 5-10% of the uncompressed TIFF size.

If the files still aren't small enough, you can downgrade the image to 600 dpi. This, of course, will shrink the image to 25% of the 1200 dpi size.

You still want scan the images at 1200 dpi TIFF, uncompressed. You want to keep a backup of the highest quality possible. As they always say, you can always downgrade, but you can never upgrade quality.

If you're using, Photoshop, it'll ask you for the threshold when you convert to a BMP.

glyphmonkey wrote:
If you're using, Photoshop, it'll ask you for the threshold when you convert to a BMP.

One other quick thing---when you look at a bitmap onscreen, it'll look not-so good, kinda jagged. But when you print it, it'll look incredibly clean.

Oh, and yeah, 600 dpi should be fine unless you've got really fine details, like tiny text or something.

Here's a different approach for you.
Take the 300dpi line art scans you already have and convert them to grayscale mode (or alternately rescan them as grayscale at 300dpi). Then save them as TIFFs. They'll print fine.

What this does is take away the jagginess and graininess that you'll get using lineart settings, but the images will still remain very sharp and black. I've had images I've done this way printed through lulu.com for my playtest book, and by multiple publishers through various POD and traditional printers. They've always looked great. There is no reason you need 1200dpi image files to print a good quality book.

For what it's worth, I disagree with madelf. You don't need 1200 dpi, but the blown up, half-scale TIFF images will have chunky edges even at 600 dpi.

By the way, BMP and "bitmap" are different things. A bitmap TIFF is probably what you want. I may have misled you earlier about that.

glyphmonkey wrote:
For what it's worth, I disagree with madelf. You don't need 1200 dpi, but the blown up, half-scale TIFF images will have chunky edges even at 600 dpi.

Fantastic, thanks everyone.

Tony

Hi Tony.

600 dpi greyscale images always work fine for me.

Jake, you'll wind up with fuzzier edges than you want that way.

I think that when Joshua said "blown up" he meant when you look at them on the screen.

But I'm really just posting to say how excited I am that Shouju Story is being printed.  yay!

--Emily

Yeah, how soon will that be available?

Emily wrote: But I'm really just posting to say how excited I am that Shouju Story is being printed.  yay!

--Emily

Jake wrote: Yeah, how soon will that be available?

glyphmonkey wrote:
Jake, you'll wind up with fuzzier edges than you want that way.

Tony wrote: I'll be selling it for $10 on Lulu at the very start of the new year.

Aren't you the guy that designed that Mountain Witch book I've been reading though? Boy did you make that sing! I'm not sure I can do the same with Shoujo Story though.

Also its a 40 minute game, I'm having great fun playing it but I don't want to exaggerate the content by sticking a high price on it.

Tony

I am that guy! Thanks!

There's an ulterior motive here, for me, by the way: I don't want people ever, ever thinking that Forge games are cheap. They're innovative, well-designed games. And instead of buying empty splatbooks, you buy a new game that does something new — and, likely, what you want — instead.

One way to do that is to charge more than people think they should cost. $10 is a pretty obvious price point. People will compare it to other things that cost $10.

$11 or $12, though? Nothing costs that amount, and people will buy it because it costs what it costs, and it's what they want.

At the very least, you won't lose any sales by increasing the price by $1. I'd bet that you could increase it 3 and you'd get the same number of sales with a 30% higher take.

Sigh ...

Yup, that's a threadjack, I think.

The topic of scanning line art has been discussed well, I think. So it's time to call this thread closed.

Best,
Ron