Integrating Images into Digital Studies

Fran Adams

Identifying and making images an integral part of the digital study requires a few rules as well. In this ongoing series of articles on creating a digital philatelic study, we’ll look at how to make images play nice in our study.

Style
Images will be called ‘figures’  (Figure 1) and have a sequential number associated with them, starting with ’1′ for the first image. Again, keeping things simple, we’ll not use sub-figure details or sub-figure numbers.

Figure 1

Every image should have a caption (description of image), in the typeface and size determined in an earlier article. The exception to the rule might be an image on the title page. I personally like captions centered under images and no wider than the image. Will we have to reword captions to get that length? You bet! Should the caption be compromised due to word length – only if you want incomprehensible descriptions. Short, sweet and to the point is the objective.

Images showing specific details of a philatelic item should be included. As there’s no restriction on image size other than page size, it’s theoretically possible to have an image fill the page. In general, it’s better to have multiple enlarged images, each showing a different detail in a reasonable size. This method is preferred to a single image with multiple details called out which are so small it’s difficult to recognize what’s important.

Images may be in color, grayscale or black and white. Color images display in Red-Green-Blue (RGB) on standard computer screens and personal scanners default to that mode. We’ll stick with RGB as we won’t need this study printed professionally.

Image Resolution
Although I typically scan originals at 800 dpi, image resolution in this study will be 150 dpi. 150 dpi provides some ability to increase the on-screen magnification (zooming in) without breaking the bank for file size.

If resolution is less than 150 dpi, the image quickly becomes blurry as the viewer zooms in for a close-up. 150 dpi also provides better reproduction should viewers decide to print the study.

Incorporating images larger than 150 dpi is possible and produces better quality when zooming in or printing, however the overall file size increases quickly. Large file sizes equal slower loading speeds on the viewer’s computer screen and limits the ability to transfer them via e-mail.

Image Formats
Original images will be saved in a ‘tagged image file format’ (tiff or tif) for everything other than vector line art. The tif format produces better reproduction quality when printing and it can be converted to all other image formats that we may require, ie. ‘joint photographic experts group’ (jpeg or jpg), ‘graphics interchange format’ (gif) or ‘portable network graphics’ (png).

For display on the web, you may wish to use jpg format and that’s fine. Remember however, that jpg is mainly for displaying color photographs with many different colors and shades. It also compresses the image and reduces the final quality although for our purposes, it likely makes little difference in most cases.

The gif format is also frequently used as it is good at displaying line art, single color or multi-color images with few colors and shades, while also maintaining smaller file sizes.

Lastly, png is a newer format similar to jpg and employed occasionally for its ability to include transparency.

Gif image for graphics with few colors

Image format selection really boils down to the type of image you are using and the file size or level of quality you desire.

Image Borders
Images will have a 1 pixel border applied in black on all four sides to provide basic delineation from the page.

Clip Art
Don’t use clip art. Striving for a professional look is completely destroyed by including ‘cute’ cartoons or line art.

Special Effects
Shadows make images or text appear to hover above the page, effectively giving a 3 dimensional look by adding depth. This is a nice accent, but application of it will be limited to graphics.

Jpg image with shadow

No other special effects will be part of this study.

Using these guidelines, all of your images will look similar and the cohesiveness of the study will benefit.

What is YouTube?

Janet Klug, WE Think

YouTube (youtube.com) is a video upload website that allows users to place their own videos and share them with, well, the entire world. The Pope has a YouTube channel. So does President Obama and Queen Elizabeth. And so does yours truly. It doesn’t cost anything to view videos; and it doesn’t cost anything to upload your own videos.

Millions of people have uploaded millions of videos. If you have an interest in something, you enter your search into the search box on YouTube and you will be offered suggestions. I love the author Neville Shute, who wrote, among other things, On the Beach and A Town Like Alice. I keyed in Neville Shute, thinking there would be nothing about him or his books on YouTube. Wrong! Fifteen selections were presented to me, including one chilling tribute to Shute’s On the Beach novel. But I digress.

With millions of people accessing YouTube on a daily basis to be educated and entertained, this is an Internet technology just waiting for stamp collectors (that means US/WE) to exploit.

I’m on a committee called “New Initiatives” of the National Postal Museum’s Council of Philatelists. This committee is chaired by APS President Wade Saadi and I chair a subcommittee called “Building New Collectors.” The “Building New Collectors” subcommittee has several initiatives in various stages of development, and one of them is the YouTube initiative.

In order to kick-start this initiative, Wade and I both prepared video presentations that we hope will show non-collectors how interesting and exciting stamp collecting can be. Wade had his son video him talking about his toy train collection and trains on stamps. You can see Wade’s video here: Trains on Stamps.

YouTube screen shot of the introduction of APS President Wade Saadi’s video “Trains on Stamps.”

My contribution to the effort was done without using a video camera. Although we do have a video camera, I wanted to be able to show others that you don’t need expensive equipment to do this. If you have a computer, you have what you need.

It helps to have a broadband connection, as viewing video on dial-up is exasperating.

My video is called “A Cat’s Stamp of Approval.” It shows lots of colorful cat stamps and the story is told ostensibly by my cat Bandit, who sounds a lot like me.

The whole idea is to put together a video “exhibit” that will attract non-collectors. Our two videos together have over 1000 viewers, so in the 2+ weeks they have been up, they have reached people we would never have been able to reach before.

And that is what WE should be doing!

Now I can hear your excuses: “I don’t have a video camera.” You don’t need one. “I don’t have the time.” Who does? If it is something we really want to do, we always find the time. “I don’t have the computer knowledge.” No problem. written instructions, will follow in another article.

“I don’t know anything I could put on the Internet.” Hey, you have an exhibit, don’t you?

YouTube may or may not be the future of our hobby, but it is here now and we are not using it. I implore you: Use it! Make a video. Promote our hobby. Recruit new collectors. Be creative. Consider the “President’s Challenge” to expand the hobby. Consider this may be the future of exhibiting, and WE can lead the way.

MS Publisher and Title Pages

Janet Klug, WE Think

What is Microsoft Publisher? Publisher is software that enables the user to create professional looking publications. It is easy to use (trust me). Publisher has many features you can customize to the way you work, and it is perfect for making stamp exhibits. Best of all, you can try it for free with a trial download from Microsoft.

Why use Publisher for making exhibits? Publisher has ready-made templates that make dandy title pages. You can add your own templates for pages, too. Horizontal and vertical rulers help with text placement. Unlike Microsoft Word, when you place text or an illustration on a page in Publisher, it stays where you put it. All essential Word features are still there, such as spell check, fonts, tables, etc. And they are easier to use.

So let’s look at what we can do with Publisher.

Title Pages

Publisher has a large variety of “canned” templates. One was used to create the title page illustrated below.

Title page for a one frame exhibit.

The author changed the fonts and colors, added a graphic of a POW camp guard tower at the top right and a scan of part of the inside of the POW letter that had been censored.

Title pages can also be made from scratch, without using any of the built-in templates, allowing the exhibitor to design the entire look and feel of the exhibit. Text can be placed anywhere on the page using text boxes. The boxes can be sized and placed precisely. Subheadings, captions above below or to the side of the philatelic material are easy to do.

Text can be placed anywhere with ease.

Scans are easily imported into “picture boxes” that can be resized by dragging handles, and then placed exactly where you want them. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? So how does it work? Let’s look at a few screens when you start up Microsoft Publisher.

This shows a blank page startup of Microsoft Publisher. From here, select “Publications for Print” from the column on the left.

Blank startup page of Microsoft Publisher.

From here, you click “Publications for Print” on the column at the left. This accesses a large selection of pre-formatted designs that can actually make nice title pages. Take your time and peruse them all. Do any of them appeal to you?

Maybe the one you like isn’t perfect for your needs, but it has “good bones.” Not to worry. You can customize any of the choices just the way you want. Do not be fearful to just play with these things. Make a bunch of title pages—even for exhibits you don’t have. Learn by doing. “Trial” and “Error” are both great teachers. That will provide a selection of formats that make great title pages! Look through all of them and find one that you like.

A Selection of Formats.

Click on a page that you like. The blank page on the Publisher screen will transform to the page you have just clicked. Clicking on the pre-formatted design will pop that design where the blank page used to be on the Publisher screen. Now you can begin customizing it to fit your needs.

Customizing Formats.

Once you have selected a page design you want to use for a title page, you can change it to meet your needs. Look at the title page shown in Figure 1. This used the same pre-formatted page shown in Figure 5, but I “tweaked” it.

(continuation of the article MS Publisher and Title Pages 2)