Wide's World

Off On, I'm Off On. Sit calm.

Binary numbers. Zero, one, zero... And all those glitter girls... Just say you're gone.

by

Widearea

Porno-Graphix

As some of the recent current events have unfolded it had ocurred to me that the topic of this week's article was no longer appropriate, and I looked at some other more impromptu topics. But ultimately it became obvious that the spirit of Wide's World cannot be defeated, and the original article as written would remain. This song was still in my head, only it's sound is now punctuated by a mix of different emotions. Since the borders of Wide's World are guarded by peace, love, and now a renewed sense of purpose, the whacky show will go on. Thank you for coming to Wide's World this week.

I have this song stuck in my head. It's by a Windham Hill guitar impresario Michael Hedges, who decided to sing on his second album, and fans soon discovered this guy actually had quite a voice. But the music is relevant to our trip to Wide's World today because digital images will always boil down to simple binary numbers read by your computer and interpreted as points of light projecting from our monitors. Human creativity has always been referred to as right brain oriented behavior, meaning that I guess the human hard drive has to use applications and pull from the RAM on the right side of the brain. Conversely, the practical, precise and scientific thinking is done (so they say) on the left side. This analogy has always disturbed me, as it inspires a strange dichotomy in human relations, and does weird things to the good thing we have going on over here in Wide's World. OK, all you mathematicians, scientists and accountants go over there. And can we get all the artisits, musicians and freaks of nature on the right? We'll be beating each other to a pulp, and the winner gets a weekend pass to Coaster Kingdom.

We will try and dissolve some of that confining disparity as we look at some of the left brain side of graphic creation for the web, as we look at basic image analysis while we make our thumbs sharper, more legible and vibrant. Some adult webmasters feel that content is the least important aspect of site building, and with good reason. Bad content forces our surfers to our sponsors. So why waste time making crisp and clear thumbnails? In some cases a thumb that is legible will prevent our surfers from looking at the bigger pics, and the time you spend manipulating your images will save you money in the long run on data transfer savings and your traffic bill.

The Histogram

The following shows a licensed Pixmasters image straight from the content CD. We will make some adjustments to brighten this particularly muddy and dark image, as well as to use the Sharpen filter effect to make it pop more than a thumb that has been sized from the raw image left untouched. Note that the image used in the example below is shown slightly larger for illustration purposes. The actual target file size for our thumbnail images should always remain between 2-3k.

1. Select File -> Open and locate the thumbnail image file you wish to work with.

2. Select Image -> Adjust -> Levels or select CTRL/COMMAND-F to bring up the image level dialog box and the image's histogram. It should look like a very bad stock market index.

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Begin by sliding the histogram's input level slider from the far right to the left. Preview the image as you slide, stopping when your image looks brighter and better than it was before. Watch the shadow areas and the highlights, and be careful not to slide too far. Play with the three slider bar points until you are satisfied that you have in fact improved your image quality. Note that the numerical values above change as you perform this action.
4. You can also adjust the output levels slider below in the same manner. Again, notice that the numerical values below change as you move the slider in the same manner.

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5. Select OK or hit Enter.
6. Select Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen.

7. Save file.

As you gain some skill with the levels mode, you will soon be able to drastically improve the appearance of your content. Sharper thumbs can result in sharper sales. In the future, we will look at some more advanced actions with image levels and histograms, but this little lesson should serve as a decent introduction to some of the things we can do to seriously improve the quality of the discount content newbies tend to have when they get started as webmasters. Enjoy your competitive edge, and until next time, Happy Hunting!

Reference

Rootwitch - The Michael Hedges resource. One of the coolest sites I have seen in a long time.