Scanning and Graphics

How to do it and What to Use

What would the Web be without interesting pictures, colors, and graphics? It would be boring. These things are what made the Web as we know it today popular.

Scanning is the process of using a scanner to digitize an image (picture, drawing, text, etc...). Scanning is the main way that people put original pictures on the Internet (along with digital cameras these days). So, let's say that you have a picture from your trip to St. Louis that you want to put on your Webpage. A scanner is how you would do it.

Graphics programs are another way creating visually stimulating Webpages. You can play with your photos, create banners, buttons, and backgrounds from scratch, etc.... There are hundreds of these programs available and it would be impossible to teach them all. Today we are going to look at a couple. You will obviously not learn these in one day (much less, one hour), but you can get a good idea of what they can do.

Scanning Software

 

We will use Abode Photoshop LE to scan pictures in this class. This is like many other graphics programs and thus the process will be similar in those other programs.

  1. Go to the "Apple" () menu.
  2. Choose Abode Photoshop LE.
  3. Wait for the program to finished loading.
  4. Go to "File"
  5. Choose "Acquire" then "TWAIN - Acquire..."
  6. You will then see a window like this....
  7. Where it says "Type" you should choose the best clarity "Millions of Colors Sharp", this will give you a large file size, but we can make it smaller in Photoshop.
  8. You should probably NOT adjust the "Brightness", "Contrast", or "Scaling" controls. If you would like to, ask me and I will help.
  9. Put your picture in the scanner next to the GREEN arrow (on the top-right side of the scanner).
  10. Choose "Preview".
  11. Adjust the dotted lines around your previewed picture so that the whole picture will be scanned.
  12. Choose "Final".
  13. Your picture will be scanned and sent to Photoshop automatically.

Graphics Software

You shouldn't need any graphics programs other than Photoshop for this class. You already know how to open Photoshop, but how to you get all those great graphics and animations on the Web? They are available on hundreds of different Websites. Here is a list of a few of these.

Address What do they have How do I use them
http://www.gifs.net animated gifs/backgrounds/etc.. Free to use
http://www.fg-a.com/gifs.html animated gifs/backgrounds/etc.. You should make a link to their site
http://gifs123.tripod.com animated gifs/backgrounds/etc.. Free to use
http://www.wilsoninfo.com/gifs.html animated gifs/backgrounds/etc.. You should make a link to their site
     
http://www.freewebtemplates.com Web page templates You should make a link to their site
http://www.elated.com/toolbox Web page templates You should make a link to their site

I also gave you a sample disk full of lines, backgrounds, bullets, and a couple photographs. Please feel free to use any of these and play with your Web page as much as possible. The more you try, the better your page will look and the better you will like it.

 

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Created by Daniel Craig