Photoshop Help: Making a Transparent Background

[Jay GT4]

Here's one on which I did a much better job on the edges. It was, coincidentally,  to be used in/on a book cover for someone.
PeteB

Very nice!

[Molinari]

Apparently I will have to do this all on photoshop, since there have to be very specific measurements for A4 pages, the amount of pages (which effects the spine measurement) and a "bleed" area which overlaps the hard cover. 

[Jay GT4]

It's easy once you know what to do.  Like I said do a YouTube search for a tutorial.

[Andrew McCabe]

Apparently I will have to do this all on photoshop, since there have to be very specific measurements for A4 pages, the amount of pages (which effects the spine measurement) and a "bleed" area which overlaps the hard cover.  

A tip for book preparation: Prepare all illustrations full-page width, to exactly fit between the margins, including the necessary white space, even if just one tiny coin. And all at the same dpi settings. That way, every single illustration will be the exact same width (eg 4200 pixels wide if you decide to go 600 dpi and in margin width is 7 inches). This makes avoiding accidents incredibly easy. All illustrations will be the same width, containing between 1 and many coins each, and you'll be in charge of the relative position of coins. And if you page through the illustrations in eg Windows Photo Viewer, the illustrations will typically all occupy the screen width, so you can visually check that every illustration is approx correct size (and not double or half). I did this for my lengthy paper on anonymous bronzes which had hundreds of size critical coin pics. To be able to say each was 4200px and 7 inches wide made layout so simple, just a matter of interspersing coins and text without needing to even think about size.

There were ultimately zero errors.

Another tip: don't overly worry about getting coin widths down to less than millimeter - provided they all visually look relatively correct, the readers eye will for example agree with proposed die matches even if one is a mm larger. And if you weren't given a width but you know the die width for that series, you can usually visually scale it.

Third tip (that PhotoShop experts will no doubt dispute): PhotoShop is in my view a massively over complex programme for coin image processing. I use the free version of Photofiltre (google it) which is more like an app that does all the basics - colour, contrasts, shadows, brightness, all the cut and pasting functions you'll need, rotations, skewing, can deal with layers and so on. But it's a very simple tool that doesn't have the myriad PhotoShop functions (eg it won't correct red eye). Fast, simple and free. For PCs only.

[Molinari]

Thanks.  I found a good video but now I have to wait on a final page count.  The video made it seem easy enough.

Andrew, since our book is a study on iconography no coins are printed actual size or sizes relative to each other, but made to fit a predetermined box.  So virtually all coins appear larger than they actually are, just like in an online auction listing.

[Andrew McCabe]

Thanks.  I found a good video but now I have to wait on a final page count.  The video made it seem easy enough.

Andrew, since our book is a study on iconography no coins are printed actual size or sizes relative to each other, but made to fit a predetermined box.  So virtually all coins appear larger than they actually are, just like in an online auction listing.

Nick

Hmm. I don't like that at all. Sorry but that's to me a no no. It means that your book cannot be used as a source book for other uses than iconography. For example it can't be used for die studies, for comparative purposes with other coin of the era, to track how denominations changed over time etc. Even for your purposes, the readers wont be able to explore how MFB usage varied across denominations, in frewuency terms or design details. Actual, or a fixed ratio (x2 or x1.5, or by exception enlarged) is the only way to go except for coffee table coin books. Even Kent-Kraay-Hirmer used fixed ratios of actuals. My library includes no books printed after 1800 than don't show or give (in mm) actual coin sizes, with the exception of books devoted purely to iconography as yours is. But in those cases I think it always a lost opportunity to provide a book whose coins could also be studied for other purposes. Even on my website, the 2012 release has all illustrated coins on the main pages correct relative size to each other. I achieved this by making each photo exactly the width of four Abafil compartments of the sake size and I then rephotographed all the coins with Abafils as background. I have to admit however than this "correct relative size" bug is something that only hit me in recent years.
Andrew

[Molinari]

Well we list all that info with each coin- denomination, mm, weight, ect.  We just want the images to be clear.  Most bronze MFB coins are small, and the inscriptions and secondary devices even smaller.  If actual size you wouldn't be able to see most of that.  It would essentially be a book of grayish blobs.

[Andrew McCabe]

Well we list all that info- denomination, mm, weight, ect.  We just want the images to be clear.  Most bronze MFB coins are small, and the inscriptions and secondary devices even smaller.  If actual size you wouldn't be able to see most of that.

OK if you list the mm weight etc it helps greatly. Still just being selfish I'd have preferred if the small coins were some consistent size ratio e.g. x2, so we could visually distinguish tiny from merely very small!

[Molinari]

Perhaps we'll adopt that method for the silver catalog where the devices are much clearer.