World of Coins

I recommend the irfanview freeware to combine and resize pics.

http://www.irfanview.de/

:)

For Mac users: Graphic Converter (http://www.lemkesoft.com/) is my favourite. Much easier to use than Photoshop, takes much less memory (not difficult.)

The poll runs forever. You can change your vote, but you have only one vote. I have the intention to add new names as the come up come up asap, provided that there is a link to the software's web page.

Web-based tools will in principle work with any operating system.

Peter

I have Photoshop but what I actually use is Paintshop Pro.  Much easier than Photoshop and cheaper.

Old versions
http://www.oldapps.com/Paint_Shop_Pro.php

Or new:
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1184951547051#tabview=tab0

Dale

I bought Paint Shop Pro 7 when it was released. My version is 7.04. It's beautifully intuitive and does everything I need. It's not freeware, though.

My vote also goes to Paint Shop Pro.  It does a lot of things most coin collectors will never want to do (at least, they will never want to do these things to coin images  :-\ ) but the relatively narrow range of functionality usually wanted for this hobby is easy and intuitive, quick and reasonably reliable in daily use.  I have had occasional problems with this programme 'hanging' and needing to be re-started (with consequent loss of work) but generally OK.  I tried the Irfanview programme and didn't like it at all, and Photoshop is way beyond my means, and I would certainly never need about 97% of its functionality for coin image manipulation, so why clutter the hard drive with such a lot of unused bloatware?  PSP has worked well for me with Agfa, Epson and other brands of scanner and a 'microscope' from Stanley Gibbons, and with several versions of Windows on a number of PCs, and I have recommended it to a number of chaps, all of whom have been satisfied.  Best image manipulater I have ever seen was a Mac programme, but I don't have a Mac, so can't comment about them, except to say that most folk would drive a Rolls Royce or Lamborghini if they could afford one.

I was never happy with the Serif programmes, if anyone is considering them......

Where's my commission, Paint Shop?  ;D

Salvete

Here, on this computer (a Mac) I use GraphicConverter. For very basic stuff (rotating, mirroring, etc.) the Preview app which comes with every Mac is fine too. But with anything beyond that ... GC rules. :)  On the Windows computer (an XP netbook) all I have is something called Microsoft Paint. Not thrilling but OK for what I want "on the road".

Christian

GIMP (http://www.gimpshop.com/) is freeware and should be enough for most users. You can get it on Linux (Unix) or Windows platforms.

Best program should be Photoshop, but most people don't know how to get the best of it, and it is not easy to use.

So, as you said, Paint Shop Pro is quite intuitive. So my vote goes for it.

Tried GIMP, but it crashed on my machine (Mac book pro with MacOS 10.5). Too bad. I like the open source/GNU approach.

Peter

Paint.net is as easy to use as paintshop pro, and 100% freer. http://www.getpaint.net/

I usually scan carefully, using the Epson Smart Panel settings to the best advantage (using an Epson CX3600 printer/scanner) and then, for scans needing a reduction use Microsoft Office Picture Manager to reduce the size (for consistency, usually to 40%), also cropping any unwanted border at the same time, plus any other adjustments needed.

As I am sending full-size scans to SCWC, I name the originals with the prefix GB, e.g 'GB 2009 £1 Dent o', the last letter being for obverse/reverse, and any reduced ones are saved without the 'GB'.

A usuful tip, given by Tony Clayton in a previous topic, is to scan the coin 'upside-down' and then invert the image, this giving the light from the top of the coin which often shows the detail with a more natural lighting angle.

Bill.

I second Bill's suggestion of scanning upside-down if your scanner works like his and mine, because it seems natural to assume that the light shines from above, and if we scan so that it is shining on the lower side of the legends, it looks odd, and our eye often presents them to our brains as incuse designs, and it takes an effort of will to see them as they really are.  Whatever we do, consistency is important.  We all set our own rules in that respect, and for dpi, monochrome or colour and so on, but for sharing images, some agreement between parties would be valuable, I think.  A picture only paints a thousand words if it is made correctly, and old worn coppers present problems much worse than worn silver coins, and we all have our own ways of tackling them, but entirely satisfactory results are rather elusive for the worst coins.  That is why a number of workers prefer line drawings, and some (like Hans Herrli) have become extremely good at the techniques involved, but some of us do not have the necessary patience or artistic skill.
Salvete.

Photoshop I find difficult to use ::) So I use photoscape,which is also a freeware software.Easy to use and takes less memory...
www.photoscape.org

Aditya

I scan at different dpi depending on the result I want but never less than 300dpi.  My favorite settings are 300 dpi, 600, dpi and 1200 dpi.  Then I take them into Paintshop and if the images are for email or the internet, I reduce the dpi to 72 dpi.  I get a much better image that way than scanning them at 72 dpi to start with which results in a horrible image.

If they are going to be printed I make them or leave tham at 300 dpi.

After I decide on the dpi then I change the physical size (inches in my case) to the desired size.  Often I will increase the contrast, and sharpen the image once.  If the image is for a coin that I plan to sell on eBay that is all I will do.

If the coin image is strictly for display, I will remove any stray lint from the image and major bag marks and sometime small discolorations.

Next time I will examine the upside down scan technique...thaks for the suggestion.


Dale

Like you, Dale, my preferred resolution for images intended just for my own records were 300dpi.  But I found that people who wanted any of them for publication required better images, and the coins would have to be re-scanned at 500 or even 800 dpi, so I made my standard images 500dpi by default.  I do not convert to inches or mm but leave them described in dpi, bacause if I use 'canvases' of the same dpi I know they will appear on the page as lifesize unless they get adjusted.  800 dpi images and bigger make large files for storing and attachments to mails, so I avoid them unless they are needed for a special purpose, or are wanted by a colleague.  I used to use monochrome, but now I save them as both monochrome and technicolour, because both are often needed for specific purposes.  My 'usual' journal, the JONS, requires monochrome, but more and more publications printed in India (books, brochures, 'souvenirs' and newsletters) are nowadays printed in clour, so it is useful to have both.  Very few of my coins have much in the way of very fine detail, so 1200 dpi is wasteful of storage space and scanning and manipulation time, so even if I needed them for some reason, I would probably not keep them after the job was done.  Little bits of detail like Amit has bee showing us is a different matter, of course.
Barry

I need something that will crop out backgrounds and give me a circular finished image - for coins, at least!  None of the free image programs that come with later versions of Windows will do this, so I keep copying an old version of Photo Editor from computer to computer as I upgrade.  I fear the day will come when it will no longer be compatible with my OS (Windows 7 may be problematic, I don't know) but for the moment it works.  I use the Photoshop 5.0 LE that came bundled with PageMaker many years ago for basic image manipulation, then PhotoEd for final cropping if needed.

If any of the free programs that our colleagues have mentioned in this thread will do circular/oval cropping, I'd love to hear about it!

Well, I've just tried Photoscape and I like!  Gives me a better result than my combination of old programs, for one thing.

Paintshop has circular and multi-sided (i.e. a series of short straight lines added click by click) by which any shape can be cut out and moved to a new 'canvas' and that's what I use co 'cut out' and move odd shaped coin images without their shadows.

Salvete

I'm confused. (I know, it doesn't take much.) I recently ranted posted in this thread (http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,8858.30.html), and wanted to upload a picture of what I was fulminating about. As it happens, I have uploaded it, but only by mistake. While composing the thread I attached it, but because the file size was apparently more than 65 kb, I had intended to remove the attachment before posting, but forgot.

The file that's actually there claims to be about 119 kb on my computer, yet on WoC it says it's 37 kb. I could in fact have kept some of the resolution I've lost, as I've only used 60-ish per cent of the available size. Is there a foolproof way of knowing in advance what the file size is going to be before uploading? Even better, is there some way of saving a file by size, so rather than saying you want it to be x by y millimetres or pixels, you can tell it to resize the image such that it's less than x kb?

Two issues here, I think. First, the size of a file on your computer (or rather, the space that it takes) will usually depend on the total size of the hard drive or partition. If you copy your 119K file to a 256K USB stick for example, it will probably be "smaller".

What you want to achieve (target size = x KB) is basically possible, but probably depends on the software you use. On the Mac I use Graphic Converter for most of my (limited) image editing. Here I can move a "quality" slider from, say, 100 percent (full quality) to, for example 40 percent, and further below see the original size plus the resulting size if I save the image at that 40% quality. I am sure some other software, including Windows and Linux, will do that too ...

Christian

In windows one easy way is to reduce the size in paint.  Go to image then resize/skew, this is the results of 50%

Ah, the perennial problem.

As I noted on 11th March (http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,8960.msg60557.html#msg60557), the method that I use is to scan and then use 'MS Office Picture Manager' for editing, in place of where Andy uses 'Paint'.

Here are the three versions of a coin that I scanned earlier today.   Being a small coin, I am (hopefully!) able to show all three versions of the scans; 1st the original, 2nd after cropping for sending to KM, and 3rd after reduction to 60% which is usually just right for illustrating large coins such as crowns in WoC.   Even with small coins such as this, I keep to the 60% for consistency.

It is all done by experience.   Now that I've got used to doing the various stages, each scan takes only a couple of minutes including all editing.

Bill.

A simple easy way to quickly resize & crop your coin photo's so they don't exceed the size allowed

I've used Resizr countless times, it's free & easy to use

http://www.resizr.com/

I use  Resizr, it's as easy as you can get, just drag the top slider to decrease the size

http://www.resizr.com/

Quote from: capnbirdseye on April 22, 2011, 03:44:25 PM
I use  Resizr, it's as easy as you can get, just drag the top slider to decrease the size

http://www.resizr.com/

If it works for you, that's great.   However, I'm trying to avoid downloading anything from other than Microsoft plus any other well known applications.   One download recently tried to take over the complete registry on my laptop and I had to have everything re-installed, including Windows 7, so I had to start again as though I had a new machine.  Fortunately, my individual files were well backed-up so I have had no problem there.   Replacing my personal settings for things like Excel will take some time, as will finding my "chosen sites".   My laptop is highly personalised and I have buttons for several sites, including World of Coins, across the top of the screen.

For me, existing methods work and others have their own methods.   If "resizr" works OK for you, then that's the one for you to use.   Thanks, however, for telling us about "resizr" as others might wish to try it.

Bill.

Dear Amit,

I notice that the image size that you have posted is 1010 X 500 pixels, but the image size is still just 52.73KB. And the best part is that the image is absolutely sharp and clear.

Can you please share that at what resolution you take the photographs? Normally, at 65 KB, all I can manage at the most is about 325 X 325 pixels.

Abhay

Image was scanned at 1200 dpi and 100% size. Then I used a free software ACDCee to edit the image. The image was aprox 1100 x 2100 and I reduced the size to what it is and finally reduced the compression to about 8%. That did the trick.

Amit

Quote from: translateltd on September 09, 2010, 06:40:26 AM
I need something that will crop out backgrounds and give me a circular finished image - for coins, at least!  None of the free image programs that come with later versions of Windows will do this, so I keep copying an old version of Photo Editor from computer to computer as I upgrade.  I fear the day will come when it will no longer be compatible with my OS (Windows 7 may be problematic, I don't know) but for the moment it works.  I use the Photoshop 5.0 LE that came bundled with PageMaker many years ago for basic image manipulation, then PhotoEd for final cropping if needed.

If any of the free programs that our colleagues have mentioned in this thread will do circular/oval cropping, I'd love to hear about it!

the gimp does it and I do it all the time.  In fact, there is little that the gimp doesn't do....

http://www.gimp.org

BTW - if it is not GNU, it is not for you.

Quote from: capnbirdseye on April 22, 2011, 03:11:46 PM
A simple easy way to quickly resize & crop your coin photo's so they don't exceed the size allowed

I've used Resizr countless times, it's free & easy to use

http://www.resizr.com/

Great link which is the largest size on here that will be accepted by the forum? This 65kb as me confused this resizer is measured in pixels?

Quote from: Donnydave on April 18, 2013, 09:46:38 AM
Great link which is the largest size on here that will be accepted by the forum? This 65kb as me confused this resizer is measured in pixels?

I don't use resizer since I discovered amazingly free Photoscape, here you can see a slider showing size in kb & you adjust accordingly by reducing quality & size until it comes in at 64.9 or less,  the forum says 65kb maximum but in practice it's actually 64.9

Vic,
                you have just made my day, if not my whole year. PhotoScape cuts out so many of the interim procedures needed with my current method. Mrs Bagerap will probably thank you too, as she complains that too much of my time is spent photo editing.

Bob

Quote from: bagerap on April 18, 2013, 11:24:05 AM
Vic,
                you have just made my day, if not my whole year. PhotoScape cuts out so many of the interim procedures needed with my current method. Mrs Bagerap will probably thank you too, as she complains that too much of my time is spent photo editing.

Bob

;D ;D  it is an amazingly good programme for free, circle cropping for coins is one of the best features & of course combining images side by side,  I've experimented with the quality slider versus small kb size and in order to keep the coin to a large size means low quality, all my photo's posted on WoC are lowest quality at around 64kb but look perfectly good

I was the first person to recommend Photoscape. ;D ;)

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,6846.msg48531.html#msg48531

Have been using it for 4 years now without any issues. :)

Aditya

Quote from: Bimat on April 18, 2013, 12:05:41 PM
I was the first person to recommend Photoscape. ;D ;)

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,6846.msg48531.html#msg48531

Have been using it for 4 years now without any issues. :)

Aditya

Sadly not,  ;D ;D :P :P :P you were beaten by Aiden of BC Numismatics  who mentioned it on  June 19, 2008, 12:19:10 AM

And then there's GraphicConverter for Mac OS which I have been using since ... don't remember whether it was Julius Caesar or Charlemagne who recommended it. ;D  Anyway, it does that too.

Christian

Thank you I have been using photoscape for a few years now, and just found out this morning it is the 300 size that is ideal for the forum pics?

I use Paint.Net - it's free too! 8)
It has most of the features mentioned above but no batch processing  ::)  :'(

I prefer Microsoft's Office Picture Manager - just click to compress for web page and save. Alternatively it will also re-size if required.

I have been using photobucket as a backup for my pics and it resizes them
depending on what you are doing with them. 

There is a new and very well executed website that allows you to reduce the image size to 70% and speed up the site, I tried it and got the best result, completely free and not requiring any type of registration.
I think you need to check this site https://www.resizejpeg.com/ (https://www.resizejpeg.com/)

Thanks
Seems to be very good.
Will try it.


Regards
Pabitra

Thank you ,
Pabitra

Regard
James

Should prove quite useful here. Thank you.

Thank you!

I just tested it, and I cannot see any differences between the original 1.29 Mb and the resulting 179 Kb images!

OK, nowadays disk space is not very expensive, but if you can save 70% on all .jpg files, then it amounts to several tens of Gb for me!

Ole

THATS SO GOOD!!

Thank you :)

Hey ,Just checkout this website  https://www.resizejpeg.com/  to resize image and speedup your site ,
its cost less and no reacquired to any type of registration.

This deserves to be pinned, I think. I, for one, use it every time for posting here. It is incredibly easy to use on the PC as well as on an iPad/iPhone.

Merged thread instead, so that it can be compared with all others. You can change your vote in the poll above  by deleting your vote and voting again.

Peter

Folks,
I need some help !
I earlier used to embed the pictures of coins that i hosted on google drive.. but due to some policy changes.. embedding is disallowed by google now..
i have around 400 pictures of coins which i need to relink.. is there any fast and quick way for the following:

(1) compress all the original jpg files to < 200kb ? ( the average size of each file is about 1M-1.6M)

any help would be appreciated..

cheers,

mahe

What I am describing here can be done with Graphic Converter, but that software runs only on a Mac. Nevertheless, I suspect there is PC software out there that will do the same thing. I hope some PC users can advise.

• Sort photos by size.
• Create an as yet empty folder for manipulated photos.
• Move any photos that are small enough to post without manipulation into the new folder.
• Experiment with the largest picture how it needs to be manipulated. Note settings.
• Set up a batch manipulation for e.g. the largest 100 that manipulates photos in the original folder and puts the result in the manipulated photos folder.
• Check some results in manipulated photos folder. Adjust settings if necessary.
• Repeat as necessary

Peter

Maybe some of this can help :

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/most-convenient-way-to-automatically-resize-photos-for-email-im-blogging-and-web-galleries/

Thanks a lot for the advise, i will follow the instructions and use one of the applications mnetioned in the link.

cheers,

mahe

MacOS 11.2 (Big Sur) broke Graphic Converter :'(

I need a replacement urgently, cheaper is better, free is perfect. The Mac software in the poll gives me acute sticker shock. I don't need anything fancy: removing what is not selected, combining pictures, reducing pixel depth, adjusting colours.

What can you recommend for the Mac?

Peter

Quote from: Figleaf on February 10, 2021, 08:42:02 PM
What can you recommend for the Mac?

Some matches?  ;D

I don't use any of those I have Win 10 and use Microsoft Office picture manager.

I also use Picasa 3 in conjunction.

Anyway, the size of images and costs of same have gone into the cellar. I just bought a Samsung 1Tb SSD disk for 110 Euros! I remember the 72 Kb disks on the IBM series 315, they costed tens of thousands of US$.... and that's was a main-frame in those days!
So why bother about file sizes? A SSD disk takes the space of a credit card and cost next to nothing AND they are super fast and reliable to 99.99% since they have no movable parts....

@andyg: Tried that. They don't match. I hear they set a peesee on fire. Have you tried it? ;)

@Globetrotter: on servers, space is money and you can't run a site like this from home.

Found a solution. I had a free version of Graphic Converter. There is a paid version that does run on MacOS 11.2. I thought Lemke had stopped developing GC. Trying it out now.

Peter

I have used Photoshop, since around 1995.

I save a scanned image in highest possible true resolution as a .tiff file; or with a camera shoot in camera raw, with no adjustments made by either the scanner or camera - Photoshop is better at this. I would especially apply this to a visit to a museum or bank archive - might never get a second chance, so the records need to be as good as they can be!

I would always keep the original scan unmodified as the archival version, and work on a copy. Photoshop's toolkit has improved a lot since I started using it, and sometimes when revisiting an old project, I will pull the original scan from say 2001 and readjust the colour balance using the current version of Photoshop. The Brightness/Contrast function in particular were improved around 10 years ago. Photoshop also supports layers which can be very useful, especially in removing scanner artifacts and colour casts.

The main thing I endeavour to do is to maintain the originality of the image and to be able to undo any adjustment should it become necessary. This of course leads to lots of big files on many HDDs!

A big downside to Photoshop is that it has moved to a subscription model in recent years which makes it less attractive for non-professional users - it can get expensive.

If it's any comfort, I am shopping around for a hard disk to replace an old one. Two Tb costs less now than 500 Mb when I bought the old one.

Peter

SSD (Solid State Disk) discs are available, they are small , extremely fast and now the size of a credit card I have a Samsung of T5 with one TERRABYTE space for around 100 Euro.

Stuff moves fast, Ole. I was talking about 2Tb for less than €70.

Peter

Indeed, indeed, we can tell stories in front of the lighted chimney for our grandchildren.

Like "in my youth we had to crank a telephone to get connected to an operator in a telephone central and ask her to be connected to the number I wanted to talk to. She would then put a jack in a hole to get to the next bigger telephone hub, and another operator would put a jack in hole and so on, until the wanted number was reached through all the connections and if I was lucky there would be somebody next to the  wanted telephone to answer it, who might be the person I wanted or somebody else. If not there was no way to leave a message, neither written nor oral." Oh, yes!

Below a KTAS telephone 100% like the one we had in home in Denmark

I have an old 1950s phone on my desk too, got it from my grandfather, not as old as that one though.

I have a stack of 1TB SSDs, cost around 70 each now, the price falls every time I buy one :) - soon they will be free with coffee!