accurate and quick resizing of objects?

Hi All

Hope some one can help me out as this is driving me nuts.
Scenario

I am the photographer for a University Earth Sciences department and I have a whole stack of digital photo images of fossil specimens which have been shot by one of our students in a variety of museums around the world over the past couple of years. I now have to prepare these images for publication at a given magnification.

I have exact dimensions between two known points for all of the images (ie in real life I have the measurement from say the back edge of an eye socket to the front of the teeth).

So far so good!

I now need to resize them to a specific scale ie 1:5 so that when they are printed on a sheet direct visual comparisons can be made between the specimens.

The only way I have found to resize the image to a specific scale is to use the measure tool to check the dimension between the known points and then calculate that measurement as a proportion of the whole frame. Next I calculate the percentage increase/decrease required to achieve the correct dimension between the known points. Finally I apply this to the dimensions of the whole image and crop out the area required for printing.

There has to be an easier way! Is it possible to use the measure tool and then change the dimension by typing values in – like you would with a marquee selection tool and thus avoid all the messing around?
If it was just a few images I could easily do it the ‘hard’ way but there are hundreds to be done!

Any suggestions folks? – Unfortunately, giving them back to the student with instructions on how to do it themselves is NOT an option :o(

regards

Dudley

Hi All

Hope some one can help me out as this is driving me nuts.
Scenario

I am the photographer for a University Earth Sciences department and I have a whole stack of digital photo images of fossil specimens which have been shot by one of our students in a variety of museums around the world over the past couple of years. I now have to prepare these images for publication at a given magnification.

I have exact dimensions between two known points for all of the images (ie in real life I have the measurement from say the back edge of an eye socket to the front of the teeth).

So far so good!

I now need to resize them to a specific scale ie 1:5 so that when they are printed on a sheet direct visual comparisons can be made between the specimens.

The only way I have found to resize the image to a specific scale is to use the measure tool to check the dimension between the known points and then calculate that measurement as a proportion of the whole frame. Next I calculate the percentage increase/decrease required to achieve the correct dimension between the known points. Finally I apply this to the dimensions of the whole image and crop out the area required for printing.

There has to be an easier way! Is it possible to use the measure tool and then change the dimension by typing values in – like you would with a marquee selection tool and thus avoid all the messing around?
If it was just a few images I could easily do it the ‘hard’ way but there are hundreds to be done!

Any suggestions folks? – Unfortunately, giving them back to the student with instructions on how to do it themselves is NOT an option :o(

regards

Dudley

Hi All

Hope some one can help me out as this is driving me nuts.
Scenario

I am the photographer for a University Earth Sciences department and I have a whole stack of digital photo images of fossil specimens which have been shot by one of our students in a variety of museums around the world over the past couple of years. I now have to prepare these images for publication at a given magnification.

I have exact dimensions between two known points for all of the images (ie in real life I have the measurement from say the back edge of an eye socket to the front of the teeth).

So far so good!

I now need to resize them to a specific scale ie 1:5 so that when they are printed on a sheet direct visual comparisons can be made between the specimens.

The only way I have found to resize the image to a specific scale is to use the measure tool to check the dimension between the known points and then calculate that measurement as a proportion of the whole frame. Next I calculate the percentage increase/decrease required to achieve the correct dimension between the known points. Finally I apply this to the dimensions of the whole image and crop out the area required for printing.

There has to be an easier way! Is it possible to use the measure tool and then change the dimension by typing values in – like you would with a marquee selection tool and thus avoid all the messing around?
If it was just a few images I could easily do it the ‘hard’ way but there are hundreds to be done!

Any suggestions folks? – Unfortunately, giving them back to the student with instructions on how to do it themselves is NOT an option :o(

regards

Dudley

Windows XP has a ‘powertoy’ available from Microsoft which can re-size a whole directory of images to the one size. I don’t use this tool myself

I’m relatively sure it can do what you ask. It’s free so perhaps worth a try?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.a sp
Failing that, create a droplet to do the task. Just drag a whole CD of images into the droplet and away it will go. Unfortunately the droplet solution will result in each individual image getting done, one at a time whereas the MS image resize will do a whole directory in very fast time.

…
Scenario

I am the photographer for a University Earth Sciences department and I have a whole stack of digital photo images of fossil specimens which have been shot by one of our students in a variety of museums around the world over the past couple of years. I now have to prepare these images for publication at a given magnification.

I have exact dimensions between two known points for all of the images (ie in real life I have the measurement from say the back edge of an eye socket to the front of the teeth).

So far so good!

I now need to resize them to a specific scale ie 1:5 so that when they are printed on a sheet direct visual comparisons can be made between the specimens.

The only way I have found to resize the image to a specific scale is to use the measure tool to check the dimension between the known points and then calculate that measurement as a proportion of the whole frame. Next I calculate the percentage increase/decrease required to achieve the correct dimension between the known points. Finally I apply this to the dimensions of the whole image and crop out the area required for printing.

There has to be an easier way! Is it possible to use the measure tool and then change the dimension by typing values in – like you would with a marquee selection tool and thus avoid all the messing around?
If it was just a few images I could easily do it the ‘hard’ way but there are hundreds to be done!

"dudley" wrote in message

…
Scenario

You could probably write a script for this, using the Photoshop scripting plug-in. Instead of the measure tool, use the rectangular marquee, putting opposite corners on the points of interest. Copy the selection to a new, temporary document. Compute the diagonal size of the new document (Pythagorean theorem), then adjust the pixels/inch of the original document accordingly.
But if you’ve never done any Photoshop scripting before, it might be faster to do 100 images by hand. 🙂

Read the question again mate

Stephan

"Stephan" wrote in message

Read the question again mate

The OP wants to resize in bulk MS powertoy does just that. What’s the problem Stephen? can’t do the math?
Doug

On 6-Jan-2004, "Techno Aussie" wrote:

"Stephan" wrote in message

Read the question again mate

The OP wants to resize in bulk MS powertoy does just that. What’s the problem Stephen? can’t do the math?
Doug

No, the OP wants to measure the distance between known points on each

and then resize each image so that distance is the same on all images.

resizing won’t work because the distance between the points has to be measured for each image. What the OP was asking for is a way to automate converting the mesasurement into a scale factor to be applied when

From the OP:
I have exact dimensions between two known points for all of the images (ie in real life I have the measurement from say the back edge of an eye socket to the front of the teeth).

So far so good!

I now need to resize them to a specific scale ie 1:5 so that when they are printed on a sheet direct visual comparisons can be made between the specimens.

The OP wants to resize in bulk MS powertoy does just that. What’s the problem Stephen? can’t do the math?
Doug

Hi john

I too have to do loads of mugshots and use a similar method. The thing that makes that easier is that I am shooting the mugshots and so I can make the head size as near as dammit the same in the camera viewfinder so that all I need to do is drop a fixed size crop onto the image. I create an action to apply the crop and save the cropped images to a new folder. At the same time the action creates another very low res version of the image and saves it to a third folder. I then run these images through a little slide show application (Jade – shareware for Mac) which I can race through at a frame or so a second because all I am interested in is making sure the head position is where I want it. ANy images where the head position jumps in the frame I just make a note of its file number and go back and apply the crop by hand. Usually only have to do one or two per cent at most.

The real problem with the fossils is that they have all been shot hand held, the camera – subject distance varies, the size of the specimen itself varies and the resolution varies so each image has to be worked on manually. The accuracy of scale in the final print is quite important as people will often take measurements from the photos to compare against other photos or actual specimens. :o(

regards

Dudley

I think we ay be at cross purposes here guys

None of the images has a scale bar in them. Even though there could also be several shots of the same specimen as they were photographed hand held – not on a tripod so the camera to subject distance was fixed they are all shot at different distances – ie diferent magnifications.

The image of the fossil could be just a skull or a skull and neck vertebrae all the way through to a complete animal. The only dimension I have is written in the notes that go with the image – ie specimen measures 6.5 inches between centres of eye sockets or distance between incisor teeth and eye socket is 12 inches etc. There could also be several shots of the same specimen shot at different distances – ie diferent magnifications.

So I have to open the image, measure between the two reference points mentioned in the students notes and then calculate the change to make to the whole image to get it to say x1, x5 or x10 life size. I cant just make the image fit into a predetermined box. The people who want to look at the images want to be able to lay the x1 photos of various diferent specimens – the same size as the animal is in real life, next to each other and make visual and measured comaparisons between the specimens of specific features such as eye socket size and position, attachment points for muscles, wher ethe various sections of skull fuse together as the animal grows etc.

regards

Dudley

regards

Dudley

I think we ay be at cross purposes here guys

None of the images has a scale bar in them. Even though there could also be several shots of the same specimen as they were photographed hand held – not on a tripod so the camera to subject distance was fixed they are all shot at different distances – ie diferent magnifications.

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 17:25:17 +0000, dudley
wrote:

I think we ay be at cross purposes here guys

None of the images has a scale bar in them. Even though there could also be several shots of the same specimen as they were photographed hand held – not on a tripod so the camera to subject distance was fixed they are all shot at different distances – ie diferent magnifications.

OK, I know this is just a comment and no use whatever <g> but I and my partner do quite a lot of archaeology and the first thing you *always* do when photographing a record shot is make sure there’s a scale in the shot…..

…
The image of the fossil could be just a skull or a skull and neck

way through to a complete animal. The only dimension I have is written in

that go with the image – ie specimen measures 6.5 inches between centres

sockets or distance between incisor teeth and eye socket is 12 inches etc.

could also be several shots of the same specimen shot at different

diferent magnifications.

So I have to open the image, measure between the two reference points

the students notes and then calculate the change to make to the whole

it to say x1, x5 or x10 life size. …

I have sent Adobe a request to create a feature within the measure tool (much like the crop tool)
in which you could place target goals in boxes. ie. dimension and/or desired resolution. I could see its
use for most graphic layout designers as well who need to place a specific sized item within an image.
For instance, I want the measure tool no matter how far I drag it in my image, to be a certain length and at a certain resolution. Then in the end, crop to size.
I wish more users would request such a feature since it is obvious there are many application which
would benifit by it.
John M.

jwm2 wrote:

I have sent Adobe a request to create a feature within the measure tool (much like the crop tool)
in which you could place target goals in boxes. ie. dimension and/or desired resolution. I could see its
use for most graphic layout designers as well who need to place a specific sized item within an image.
For instance, I want the measure tool no matter how far I drag it in my image, to be a certain length and at a certain resolution. Then in the end, crop to size.
I wish more users would request such a feature since it is obvious there are many application which
would benifit by it.
John M.

I will be mailing Adobe just as soon as I find the relevant link on their web site.

I wouldn’t have thought that the development of the measure tool would be a huge project for Adobe and the rewards to many Photoshop users would be immense. I’m not a programmer but it seems to me that PS already generates all of the data required to the calculation. Could this be done as a plug in?
It would be such a huge bonus to be able to ‘draw’ a line between two reference points, enter a dimension into a dialogue box and have PS scale up/down the whole image, increasing or decreasing the canvas size, resampling as it goes to keep the the resolution (might be a good idea to have another part of the dialogue box which gives you a warning of the final images physical dimensions and file size before you hit the go button!)

I currently use PS 6 but would gladly go out and buy a new copy just to get that one feature.

regards

Dudley

And a very valid comment. I too always use a scale bar. Unfortunately no matter how hard I drum it into the students here they struggle to grasp its importance until its too late (in my original post I said that these files were produced by a student – that bit of info got snipped along the way). Wherever possible I get the offending student to sit down and do all the resizing – tends to drum the message home!
If shooting digital I try to include a colour patch as well – or at least a grey scale so that I can set the levels easily in PS.

The only way I have found to resize the image to a specific scale is to use the measure tool to check the dimension between the known points and then calculate that measurement as a proportion of the whole frame. Next I calculate the percentage increase/decrease required to achieve the correct dimension between the known points. Finally I apply this to the dimensions of the whole image and crop out the area required for printing.

There has to be an easier way! Is it possible to use the measure tool and then change the dimension by typing values in – like you would with a marquee selection tool and thus avoid all the messing around?