Digital Photos in Word

SL
Posted By
shannin_l._pettigrew
Jun 11, 2004
Views
386
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I am looking for suggestions on the best way to add text and arrows to digital photos and then to import them into Word. I know there has to be a “right way” out there. Unfortunately, I am a Technical Writer, not a graphic designer. What I would like to do is to maintain the picture quality possible while keeping the Word file size manageable. Unfortunately, I am not a graphic designer. I am a lone writer who continues to fluster around with a clunky method that makes for a less than desirable, grainy picture quality.

Currently—are you ready for this—I reduce the image size in Photoshop CS, which lessens the quality quite a bit. I then, as suggested by a co-worker, open the picture in Adobe Image Ready and “save optimized as 4-up”, which lessens the quality even more. (I know this is a function used for online purposes, but it does significantly reduce the file size so I just went with it.) And, there’s more…I then import the picture into Publisher, add the text and arrows, group them, then copy and paste into Word. (I add text and arrows in Publisher because when I do so in Photoshop, they are fuzzy.)

I know this is absurd, but being the only writer at a company with no graphic support, I am usually in survival mode. I just haven’t had the time to investigate further. But, since I am increasingly incorporating the use of digital photos into my procedures, I would like to finally take the time to solve this awkward dilemma. Can someone please help?
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DM
Don_McCahill
Jun 12, 2004
Try going to image/image size first of all, and changing the resolution to 300 ppi. Make sure that resample is not selected at this point. Then change the image size with resample selected to get the dimensions you want. The loss of quality here should be very minor.

Add your text and arrows now, and I recommend saving as tiff (which I think Word will accept). Don’t use save for web, as it will throw the resolution back to 72dpi.
GA
Gordon_Anderson
Jun 12, 2004
Don,

I’m not extremely experienced in Photoshop but usually I would bring an image in, go to Image>Image Size and just put in 300 ppi and type in the size that I wanted, all with resampling on. It seems like this gives me the same end result. Is there a benefit to do it in two steps. Thanks.

Gordon
MM
Mac_McDougald
Jun 12, 2004
It’s good to know whether you are using original pixels or upsampling with interpolated ones.

If you do the ppi first with resampling off, it will show you the maximum size you can go at your preferred ppi using your original pixels.

You can then decide whether to downsample to smaller print size at same ppi (generally ok), downsize to smaller print size and let ppi increase (fine, within reason), or upsample by going to larger print size at same or greater ppi (adding non original pixels, generally has diminishing returns, especially if drastic).

M
DM
Don_McCahill
Jun 12, 2004
What Mac says.

Resampling is where you lose quality, so you want to do it as little as possible.
GA
Gordon_Anderson
Jun 12, 2004
Thanks folks.
SL
shannin_l._pettigrew
Jun 14, 2004
Thank you all for your good advice. I am anxious to start putting your suggestions to use. Your help is much appreciated. Have a good day.–Shannin

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