Background gallery now available

We have all of our original background scans at 300 dpi, mostly 11.75" x 8.75" (our scanner is small); converted straight to jpg the files are a couple megs each. Do you have any suggestions on how to resize them to balance image quality with file size?

Using a version of Photoshop 5 or later, by any chance? You should be able to batch process these files if you do.

Alternatively, if that doesn't seem like something you want to experiment with, you can simply resize the images to 2350x1750 pixels for an 11.75 by 8.75 scan for 200dpi output. DPI doesn't really matter for saving JPGs because the "dpi" setting is ignored in screen display. It's only used in output to print. If that was confusing, just think that pixels are everything and dpi doesn't matter. You can also save at a JPG quality of 60% or 70% (6 or 7 on Photoshop sliding bar) and it will still look quite good.

Explanation of DPI and pixels:
http://www.rideau-info.com/genealogy/digital/dpi.html

The super simple way is this: Keep tuning down the JPG save quality on your large 300dpi scans until it's under 700k. Imperfections that are obvious on the screen blown up super large won't be nearly as apparent when the image is compressed to 200 or 300 dpi for print output.

If you want some more information on batch processing in Photoshop, e-mail me and I'll try to walk you through it. If you'd prefer to follow step-by-step instructions you can follow that will probably make more sense than mine, click one of the links here:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=batch+processing+photoshop

this is a great idea! I've uploaded one for now, and I'll add more later. The smallest I could make the file was 716k I hope this isn't a problem. If this needs to be changed I could reduce the size some. Now I have to pull apart some of my framed cels to get to the backgrounds for up-loading. ^_^
Also I have a question about backgrounds I've purchased from other collectors. The question is, they still own the original and I own a scanned copy, should I not up-load that copyied image? Please let me know what members think. Maybe in a new thread here in the forum.

As long as it shows your upload, it's okay. The cap is an artificial number I picked. The thing says 700k but in reality the cap for the entire upload (including form fields) is 750000 bytes. I think. If the website accepted it and posted it, it's kosher.

Concerning backgrounds that might not be yours? I had a few of those and I didn't want to make anyone upset because some of them are quite detailed. I would say upload if you have the original watercolor in hand. If not then we'll probably uphold our tradition/policy of "owner-of-original's rights first".

Charming! If I can get the ol scanner working, I'll send in what I have.