Help with converting tiff graphics to gif for the web

[LaPierre]

HELP!!!

We are creating a Web product for a Private Label Company using our existing data. The problem is that this company wants to be able to use the graphics as they are in any browser without a plug in of sorts. We have over 400,000 graphics that have to be converted to either GIF, PNG or JPEG. Our graphics range from 2 x 2" to 8 x 10.5" and are saved at 600 dpi in a Group 4 Tif. All of these graphics are line drawings that were scanned in from mostly printed material, some having a small amount of screening in them. These graphics look good on the screen and work fine for our desk top software and our Web product. They have high enough quality to be used [confused] for our print product. They were all created in Photoshop.

I have done everything I can think of to covert these graphics to GIF or PNG but I am not getting the quality that I would like. The print outs are really fuzzy and the smaller graphics look really bad on the monitor. The full page graphics are better in both respects but I have seen better from other web sites with the same type of information. Any suggestions?

Once I find a method for converting the graphics to a web format I have the problem of converting over 400.000 graphic files. Any ideas on conversion tools.

Any suggestions or advice is welcomed.

La Pierre

 

[dv8_fx]

This is something like what I did not so long ago. But can you post a couple of tiff samples so we can see what we're up against? A zip could do.

It may need a little retouch prior to saving to gif.

vee

 

[Stroker]

Sounds like a job for an Action and File > Automate > Batch.

Batch Files in PS - 715

Not sure about batching problem documents, though. Man, I would hate to have to hand tweak several hundred such graphics, let alone several thousand. However, I can't imagine why a line drawing TIFF would loose an appreciable amount of quality if converted to GIF.

 

[dv8_fx]

Ya tell me about it.

I had to process just 935 scanned line art images. Thank PS actions to make life easier. But I had to redo a couple of hundred coz they were really bad.

vee

 

[theKeeper]

Hi LaPierre, welcome to the community.

Are you making sure that your image is opened into PS in the RGB Mode prior to scaling? That's about the only way you'll be able to tell for sure whether this would even work or not...
BUT...
IMHO i'm afraid you're not going to be able to scale down those kinds of graphics and get any kind of decent, legible results. Line drawings contain very little actual data, and have lots of room for mis-interpolation by any app that is used to scale them. And that's why the lines and text will be garbled after scaling down.

If they were in a vector format, that would be a different story. But converting and scaling (more so converting) that many images into vector would be a nightmare.

The images you saw on other sites were most likely either not that large to begin with, or were recreated.

 

[sfm]

Welcome aboard LaPierre yep just like Mark said there make sure you have the RGB mode selected....... I did something similar only yesterday and each time I scaled it down bang fuzzy squad came screaming at me laughing ha ha ha - I did this 3 times then realised the image wasn't a RGB changed it to that and cool no more fuzzy squad but then my image wasn't as big as your to begin with.
sfm

 

[wbiss]

Welcome to the community here LaPierre!

I'm a little confused (so what else is new) 'cause you say that you want to convert the tiffs to either gif, jpeg or png for web purposes. But then you say that they "print out" fuzzy.

[confused] Are you actually looking to convert your existing files to a format suitable for both web & print purposes? [confused]

Can you post (perhaps via a weblink) an original tiff to see what we're up against, along with the web dimension specs?

Offhand, I tend to agree with Mark... and without even knowing the size of your original tiff files, I really can't foresee "line drawings" scaling down crisply (for web purposes) without losing a lot of data... let alone for 'print purposes'.

More info, clarification, please!