Hey guys, here's a quick coin pic editing tutorial as requested by @Milesofwho ! This is a very basic edit, only taking an obverse and revers pic and merging them into one, them trimming them up. No background work or any of that stuff. It requires no software be downloaded, I just used pixlr, which usually isn't my thing, I use gimp. There are probably better ways to do this, but this is pretty darn painless.
Thank you! It’s nice to know that pixlr has a mobile app, as all my photographs are done with my phone.
I take photos as jpeg files, crop them to size and then use PowerPoint to merge them into one photo, save the PowerPoint slide as a jpeg file and then crop that and do processing to adjust image quality.
Glad it was helpful! @TIF I used this to capture.. https://screencast-o-matic.com/ Screencast-o-matic. The free version is good and easy to use. You are limited to 15 minutes and have a watermark on your vids unless you pay however. The mobile app for pixlr is pretty good, I have messed around with it for other pics. I just have to edit coin pics on a big ol' monitor and use a mouse and keyboard.
This thread was very helpful to me - thank you @chrsmat71 I do have one further question: One of my goals this year is to take better quality photographs and get prints made. Just 5X7s of the merged photos that I created using Pixlr.. Does anyone know how to size the digital pic so that is fits a 5X7 (or other standard sizes ) for printing? I found this chart online.. however when I adjust the Pixel size of the merged photo it cuts off part of the coin image. Playing around with it last night and couldn't figure it out. Do I have to set the original canvas size to the specs above and then adjust my pic to fit as I am creating the merged image? Resizing the finished merged pic was not working for me. Any help is appreciated.
Looks like Pixlr has introduced a new version but the old version is still there. I don't know which version you are using but will give some general information which may or may not be helpful. I'm going to use the newer version of Pixlr Editor when going through these answers. Crop the raw image to that size. In Pixlr, choose the crop icon and then select the aspect-- in this case, 5x7. If you want 7x5, click the 5x7 again and it flips it to the other orientation. Brackets will appear over your photo. Click and drag the brackets to crop the image. You can also move the image to recenter it. Click Okay when you're happy with it. As for printing, 1. The maximum resolution of your printer. Hopefully it is at least 300 dpi (dots per inch-- dots = pixels on your picture). That's what the table you posted is showing. For a 5" x 7" print, your image should be (5 x 300 pixels) x (7 x 300 pixels), which is 1500 x 2100. 2. If the native resolution of your image was less than that, simply resizing the image to a larger number of pixels isn't going to help. The printed image will be larger but not as sharp as it should be. 3. If you do need to resize the image (larger or smaller), be sure to click "constrain proportions". Change one of the dimensions to your desired number and the other dimension will be adjusted proportionally. 4. If your image is larger than 1500 x 2100 (but in the correct proportion), that's okay. It can still be printed in high quality to a 5" x 7" size.
I’ll be the first to admit that my coin photos are not great... but for iPhone users, I have two free apps that I can recommend. The first, “Eraser” easily erases backgrounds. The second, “FrameMagic” is a good app for getting that 1x2 frame for obverse and reverse pictures. Anyway, these are the two apps best I’ve found for these uses. With these two apps and your iPhone, you can shoot, crop, erase backgrounds and frame coins into a final photo for posting all on your phone in 5 minutes or less. I should post this in an iPhone photography tips thread...
I posted this in another thread. But regrading removing backgrounds.... One can use either Powerpoint or Word (either program works similarly). Drag an image into the document (and yes, this does depend on the version you are using (mine is almost a decade old, so it should work for most): You see where it says 'Remove Background'? Click that. It gives you this: Just use your mouse to adjust the area (experiment if you dont know what I mean) on the upper left and bottom right to select the entire image. The software will try to adjust automatically. In this case: The purple is what it will remove. All else will remain. You just use your mouse and click (it shows a + or - to tell you of you are removing or subtracting). Once you mess around with it for a while you will know how it works. With my example above, this would be the result: BTW, I will pay anyone $20 if they can properly attribute the coin I used as an example. It seems to be unpublished. Ken
Camera and print proportions have always mystified me. A lot of the blame IMO goes to Ernst Leitz, inventor of the 35mm Leica camera, who settled on a frame size of 24x36mm or 2:3 proportions. Paper manufacturers and frame manufacturers preferred 8x10" size which was great for the old cutfilm cameras in 4x5 and 8x10 sizes but ordinary people stopped using those long ago. Digital SLR cameras still us the old 35mm film Leica standard but many digital cameras went back to something between the two proportionally. Workers in photo labs were blamed for poor work when people ordered an 8x10 print from a 35mm frame shot with no slop space around. To make the print, they had to crop off some from the long side losing the people on the edge or the top of the Eiffel Tower shot vertically. A few digital cameras even had settings that changed the proportions of the images recorded so you could pick what made sense to you. Some may have noticed my coin photos have extra black at top and bottom. This is because those files can be used at Costco (the best photo prints I can get locally are from Costco) to make 4x6 prints (currently $0.17). Costco also makes prints 8x12, 12x18 and 20x30" all of which conform to the 2:3 proportions. If I cropped tight on the coins and sent that file to be printed, the right and left ends would not be on the paper. Other printing shops might key on the long dimension and give a print 6" long but only 3" tall. Their customers might complain that they paid for 4" and were cheated. You can not win dealing with the public. TIF did a good job explaining the material covered. I also use Photoshop Elements but use about 10% of all the features offered. There are many other programs with different features or the same ones that are labelled differently. I started with a different program long ago but Canon gave away Elements 2.0 and hooked me on their way of doing things. I now have 13.0 and have no intention of buying the new versions until they add a feature I really want. Windows 10 won't run earlier versions so I was forced to upgrade from Elements 10. The feature that keeps me 'loyal' is that Elements handles 16 bit images and many others stop at 8 bits. If you don't know what that means, you probably don't need to. I use the same software for non-coin photos where there are different 'needs'. Yes, as a matter of fact, I do make my posts too long to appeal to people not interested. Those who want to talk about such matters are free to contact me privately but most people don't read long posts so I don't expect many to see that invitation. The best part of Coin Talk is the Conversations utility where we who want to chat can do that with the few who care.
Ken, without the size, it appears to be Nero, RPC I, 2019 from Prusa. Only two examples known; thus very rare. Size 20 mm, 4.08 gm, axis either 12 or 6. Reverse legend; ΠΡΟΥΣΑΕΩΝ. your coin: .....ΣΑΕΩΝ. If you don't have RPC I, I will reproduce all details/legends in 2019. If correct, please donate the $20 to a charity of your choice.
While I am very old fashioned there are at least a few areas in which I have joined the current century. Print proportions (or non-print, as that is largely at least 25-30 years in the past) do not mean much. Maybe some are not understanding the discussion. Modern cameras give us a resolution far greater than we can print. Print area, whether Costco or anyone else, will print what we want. Size matters not, though I suppose it does to one who wants specifically 1:2 ratio (or any other ratio, really). But I am guessing you want specific 2:1, 3:1, 15:1, whatever. Still, this means little. Mayey I am not understanding???
Yea, I have all the RPC so far. How did I miss this coin? I looked for weeks. I just looked at this, so I will have to see if it is a 100% match. In the meantime, if you want me to donate to Charity... I would do $500 to St. Josephs Children's Hospital. My second choice would be the Shriners Hospital for Children. Let me know if you have a preference and I will donate (and maybe others can do as well). I do honestly prefer these two charities. Ken
OK then. Shriners it is! My brother is closely related to their organization, I will reach out to him (his son was a beneficiary of that organizations charity, so there is a history there). I wonder, how could we do a find raiser for charity on this forum? I have ideas of course.