Beginner's coin photography questions

I recently joined the NGC registry:

http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/registry/coins/SetListing.aspx?PeopleSetID=118988

The maximum permitted size of each photo to upload is 120 KB. I took a few pictures of my coins using a digital camera (an old Powershot A570), and the computer tells me that each picture file is about 2 MB So naturally, when I try to upload them to my registry set, I get an error for 'size exceeded'. My questions are: how can I get around the size limit? Is there some way to compress the size of my photo files so as to get in under the 120 KB limit?

It seems to me that if a regular, standard picture file (I'm just setting my camera on a tripod and snapping a picture of my coin and not using any special techniques that might gobble up more memory) is some ten times the upload limit on the registry website, something is fundamentally wrong - it just doesn't make sense to me (Obviously NGC is not going to have an upload file size limit so draconian, because they want you to be able to share your pictures-that's part of the fun of having a registry set, true?). I should qualify by telling you that I am a complete newby to taking and loading pictures onto my computer (and uploading them to websites like the NGC registry) so I hope you'll forgive me ignorance and baby questions! Thanks for any tips/explanations you can lend me.

Richard

 

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Download Photoscape. It's a free photo editing program and you can easily re-size your pics employing it.

http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

 

Oh, nice line up in that registry set Sturmgrenedier. Can't wait to see some pics....

 

You can also use Paint if you are on a Windows PC.

Start, All Programs, Accessories, Paint in Windows XP.

File, Open to open your picture.

Image, Stretch/Skew and change the numbers in the Stretch section (make sure they match) and save the picture. Experiment with the size of the saved picture until you get the size you want.

 

I have used Irfanview for years. It is a free download and very easy to use as well as very powerful.

 

Thanks all of you for the suggestions. I downloaded Photoscape and Irfanview and tried them out. I'm still having difficulty reducing the size (memory) of my picture files to get under the 120 KB NGC upload limit. It's very strange: when I crop a photo that has been taken at a relatively longer distance, I'm able to get the file size under the limit (albeit with a relatively grainy image). When I try to take a photo close up (just a few inches away from the camera), no amount of cropping can reduce the picture to anywhere close to the limit. For example, I have a nice Pan-Pac, I've been trying to shoot and I can only get it down to 850KB. Anyhow, thanks for trying to point me in the right direction. It's frustrating having the coin, but not the expertise needed to share them with others I've thought about checking out coin photography books, but I don't know if they cover topics like resizing to a smaller (memory size) photo. I've taken a look at other collections at the NGC registry and some members have done an excellent job of putting together uniformly high-resolution photos that can be blown-up for all of the coins in their collections. I wonder if there was a learning curve for these people in editing and uploading their pics. Or if this is a relatively straightforward task that I am just not 'getting'? IS photo publishing somewhat analagous to learning coin grading (it takes a lifetime to master)?

 

Are your photos raw, or are you saving them as JPEG's? If you are just cropping a raw photo file, it will still be too large. You need to convert it to a JPEG file when you save it.

 

There are two things, primarily, that affect file size of a JPEG file:

1) Resolution (the number of vertical and horizontal pixels)
2) JPG compression (the amount of compression used in forming the image -- remember, JPEG is a compression algorithm for images)

However, there are a number of other lesser-known factors

3) the amount of detail in the image itself (for example a pure white photo gets compressed well by JPEG, but a checkerboard with alternating white and black pixels gets much less -- it has to do with the way that JPEG stores photo detail)
4) the range of color/contrast in the image itself (similar theory as #3 above -- it has to do with compression)
5) any embedded color space (like Adobe RGB, can add several Kb to your photo)
6) any embedded EXIF data (typically very small)

So while you should focus on 1 & 2 to have the most effect, don't forget 3-6.

 

here are two things, primarily, that affect file size of a JPEG file:

1) Resolution (the number of vertical and horizontal pixels)
2) JPG compression (the amount of compression used in forming the image -- remember, JPEG is a compression algorithm for images)

However, there are a number of other lesser-known factors

3) the amount of detail in the image itself (for example a pure white photo gets compressed well by JPEG, but a checkerboard with alternating white and black pixels gets much less -- it has to do with the way that JPEG stores photo detail)
4) the range of color/contrast in the image itself (similar theory as #3 above -- it has to do with compression)
5) any embedded color space (like Adobe RGB, can add several Kb to your photo)
6) any embedded EXIF data (typically very small)

So while you should focus on 1 & 2 to have the most effect, don't forget 3-6.

Read more: http://www.cointalk.com/showthread.php?t=151987&pagenumber=#ixzz1BnYexncY

Thanks for the information. I've tried decreasing the resolution of my pictures, but the program I used Photoscape wouldn't even let me go any lower after I reached a certain point (there is a slider that you can set, and it just locks at a certain decreased resolution level). I guess that's the program's way of telling me me that the picture would be so grainy as to be unviewable if I were permitted to reduce the resolution any further. And my file was still way bigger than the 120 KB limit I am trying to get under. And how does one improve the efficacy of the compression process? I'm thinking that coin photography just isn't my thing. I'll have to be content with seeing my coins' grades displayed in my registry set. Thanks anyway for trying to help me, though. This forum is a friendly community and great resource

 

Cropping doesn't really reduce image size enough as it doesn't lower the resolution. You really want to resize the whole picture.

Here are two pictures - the original is 348K; I resized it using Paint, 50% skew/stretch to 79K.

p.s. I think Cointalk compressed the original to 215K when I uploaded - it's 348K on my computer.

 

Strumgrenadier, what I typically do when I employ photoscape is to import (drag and drop) the raw picture into 'editor'. If I'm going to dink with the picture (enlarge the image, brighten the image, etc.) I do it here. When I'm done with the dinking I hit the resize box and under Pixel width I enter "800". The program chooses the height. I then save the picture to my desktop.

Once saved, I again drag the newly saved image back into 'editor'. From there I then crop the image and again save the image to the desktop. This should get you down (ballpark) to the image size you need to display your images in the registry set. Hope this helps....

 

People get this _ you can thank me later

MICROSOFT RESIZE POWER TOY

ALL it takes is a right click on any image, then select the size -

2 CLICKS IS ALL YOU NEED TO DO TO RESIZE ANY IMAGE.


http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/learnmore/tips/eschelman2.mspx









EASY CHEESY or what?


Sorry for yelling people.. its just that it amazes me that people don't have this/use it..

CLICK ON EACH OF THESE PICS TO SEE THE DIFFERENCE in each image

This picture is a 1mb file





This is resized to 90k with 2 clicks





this was resized as small 37kb!!




I should add that you can easily do whole batches at the same time by clicking on the first image you want resized and then hold the shift key down and click on the last image you want resized. I then sort by size - click- shift/click - cut - paste the original images on a separate hard drive for storage/safe keeping.

 

An excellent application found here......http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

I've used it many times and it works really well, however, I don't think it meshes well with anything above XP.

 

I am running Vista 64bit


I found this - it looks very legit..

http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/

 

Oh, well that's good news....

 

Thanks, Green18. I followed your detailed instructions, and I can now get most of my pictures down under the 120KB limit. I have posted pics for a few of my coins on the NGC registry. They are admittedly not very good (some are not oriented in the right direction.LOL), but I suppose a mediocre picture is better than none. I am guessing that I still have to learn a lot about lighting, (advanced) editing and other photo techniques. But, it's a start. Thanks to all who helped coach me this far. As I said before, CoinTalk really is an amazing community and resource

 

Glad I could be of some help to you Richard. Keep playing with the software and you'll figure the "orientation" thingy out. BTW....love the Panama Pacific and the Antietam.

 

I am taking Advanced Coin Photography at ANA Summer Seminar this year. After I take the course I'll share a few tips with you.

 

Wait! are those all PCGS coins? Do you already have registry set there?

 

I collect only PCGS early commemoratives, so I guess it is kind of ironic/strange that I have joined the NGC registry. I like NGC's system better than PCGS's, because the former utilizes a points scoring system with clearly defined point values for all coins in every grade. I find the PCGS scoring formula to be harder to understand (with the qualifier that I'm far from the brightest guy out there I also find the NGC interface to be more intuitive to use. I was able to basically 'run with it' when I started. I am not hyper-competitive (and realize that I will never be able to assemble one of the top collections), but I also like knowing information such as how many points I need to move up a rank. Also, for what is basically a freeware product, I have found NGC support to be very responsive (I had problems with getting their system to register my coins, but the representatives were professional and resolved the issue promptly). I still participate in PCGS registry, but not with the same vigor. Anyhow, this obviously only my opinion and experience, and I leave open the possibility that I may be wrong....