WIA

Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) is the latest imaging technology introduced in Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me), and is included in later versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. WIA provides extensive operating system support to enable imaging devices, such as scanners and digital cameras, to communicate with imaging applications (for example, Microsoft Picture It! 2000 and Adobe Photoshop).
Before WIA, there was little operating system support for imaging devices. Most of the components for imaging devices were provided by the manufacturer, and used the TWAIN industry standard.
With WIA, operating system components are provided, and the manufacturers only need to write a WIA microdriver to allow the device to work. This is analogous to the standard achieved in printing where manufacturers provided a minidriver, and the other print components were supplied by the operating system.
With WIA, independent hardware vendors (IHV) can concentrate more time on writing code to improve device features, rather than dedicating valuable time writing code to enable the device to interoperate with the Windows operating system.

Pierre Bézier

Source   Monday September 1, 2008

Today is the birthday of Pierre Bézier, the French mathematician and engineer who developed the Bézier curves method of computer drawing in the late 1960s while working for the car manufacturer Renault.
Today, most graphics software includes a pen tool for drawing paths with Bézier curves.

• More About Bezier Curves and Pierre Bézier

• Vector Drawing Terms: The Language of Curves

• Paint Shop Pro Vector Basics and Path Anatomy Tutorial

• Bezier Curves and Paths in Illustration Software

Pleasentville "single-color" effect

How to achieve the Pleasantville "single-color" effect, which isolates a single color of an object and black and white the rest to the photo.

Photoshop CS
HowtoI
HowtoII

HowtoIII

• Re: Pleasantville Effect in Photoshop CS
• Re: Pleasantville Effect in Photoshop CS
  
• Re: Pleasantville Effect in Photoshop CS

Photo Shop Pro

Open the photo in Paint Shop Pro, then duplicate it either by
Layers>Duplicate or right click in the layer palette and duplicate.

On the background copy layer, you want to desaturate it, make it black and white. You can do this from Adjust>Hue & Saturation>Hue/Saturation/Lightness. Pull the saturation slider to 0, the other sliders should be zero as well.

Now do Layer>New Mask Layer>Show All, and then choose the Paint Brush with white as the
fill and background color and Black in the foreground/stroke color box.

With black, paint on the layer mask where you want the color to show, if you make a mistake you can switch the color to white and fix it, just repaint with white.

When you're happy with it,  flatten the layers(Layers>Merge>Merge All) and save.

Photoshop's Save for Web command

Source

Enter Gallery

Introducing Save for Web

Save for Web Views and Presets

Comparing Optimized Versions

Save for Web Toolbar

Save For Web Optimization Options

Save For Web Color Table

More Save for Web Controls

http://webresizer.com/resizer/

Best Resolution for Publishing Photos

How to calculate  the best possible resolution for Publishing Photos

By Sue Chastain, About.com
See More About:

• image resolution
• printing digital photos
• resampling images
• ppi
• dpi

Real-world problem of dealing with image resolution for an image to use in publication...

"Someone wants to buy a photo from me. They need it to be 300 DPI, 5x8 inches. The photo I have is a 702K, 1538 x 2048 jpeg. I figure it has to be big enough! But how do I tell? The only photo program I have is Paint.NET, and I'm not sure it's telling me what I want to know. If I don't mess with it, it tells me that my resolution is 180 pixels/inch, at a size of approximately 8 x 11. If I make it 300 pixels/inch (is that the same as DPI?) I can get a print
size that works, about 5 x 8, and it changes the pixel width to 1686 x 2248. Is that what I'm supposed to be doing??? It doesn't seem like much of a change to the human eye."

A lot of this confusion is because most people don't use the right terminology. They say DPI when they should be saying PPI (pixels per inch). Your photo is 1538 x 2048 and you need a print size of 5x8 inches… the math you need is:

[pixels]/[inch]=[PPI]
1538/5=307
2048/8=256

That means that 256 is the maximum PPI you can get from this image to print the longest side at 8 inches without letting your software add new pixels. When your software has to add or take away pixels, it is called resampling,
and it does result in a loss of quality. The more drastic the change, the more obvious the loss in quality will be. In your example it is not very much, so the loss won't very noticeable… as you noted. In a case of this small of a change, I generally prefer to print the lower PPI image. It usually prints fine. But since you are sending this out to someone, you'll just have to accept the resampling to make it 300 PPI.

• More on Resampling
What you did in Paint.NET is fine as long as you know and understand that the software is going to resample the image. Anytime the pixel dimensions are changed, this is resampling. There are many different algorithms for resampling, and different software uses different methods. Some software even offers you a choice of different algorithms. Some methods work better for reducing image size (downsampling) and some work better for increasing image size (upsampling) like you want to do. "Best Quality" in Paint.NET should be fine for what you need to do.

• More on Upsampling Methods
My resizing practice exercise might help to make all this clearer to you. It was written as part of my Photoshop CS2 course, but the resize dialog box in other software may be similar enough that you can still follow along.

• Resizing Practice Exercise

Also see: How do I change the print size of a digital photo?
Another problem you have is that your dimensions are a different aspect ratiofrom the print size that has been requested. That means you'll have to crop the image yourself if you want control over what is shown in the final print.

• Aspect Ratio and Cropping to the Proper Print Dimensions

Here's some additional follow up clarification:

"When I tried to make the photo a higher PPI, I expected the pixels numbers to decrease rather than increase. I guess I thought that if there aren't enough pixels to get the size I want at the resolution I want, it would 'spread them out' somehow, not give me more. Now that I've read your resampling definition, I understand why there are more pixels, not less."

What you said about spreading out the pixels is basically what happens when you send a lower resolution file to the printer. At lower resolutions, the pixels get more spread out and you lose detail; at higher resolution pixels are squished closer together, creating more detail. Upsampling causes your software to create new pixels, but it can only make guesses as to what is accurate — it can't create any more detail than what was there originally.

Resolution Glossary

PPI - Pixels per Inch
DPI - Dots per Inch
Resample

Resizing and Resampling for Print
Increasing Image Resolution
Change the Print Size of a Digital Photo
Aspect Ratio

More Resolution Tips
Image Size and Resolution
How Many Pixels Do I Need For Printing Photos?
Resizing Practice