The Night Of Nights - Preparing Images For Web PSA's

You have your plan or storyboard. You've downloaded and installed Dubit. You have got your photos or image sources converted to jpeg/jpg image format. The next thing to do is to format them for use in your project.

The first step is important. Never, ever work from your original scans or digital camera images. Make a copy. If you goof it up you can always return to the master image file.

Second, you want to create one location where all of your files, sounds, and project documents will be kept. It makes it easier to find stuff when you are ready to assemble the project.

All the images in your PSA need to be the same size. In this case, you'll want to resize it 320 x 240 for a web based PSA movie or 160 x 120 for transmission by e-mail. Dubit also allows you to set the image size but I have found that the compression is a little rough on images and type.

You'll need a photo editing or photo illustration program to adjust the images. You can use one of the following free programs:

• Microsoft Paint - installed on all Windows based computers. Windows Paint XP is a wee more helpful however, it is a basic and limited program.
• IrfanView - allows you to easily convert and resize images http://www.irfanview.com
• Picassa - free image catalog software that has some photo editing and image adjustment features - http://www.picassa.com
• The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a full powered photo-imaging program. The Gimp is not for newbies, there is an installation and learning curve - http://www.gimp.org
  

The next step? Assembling your PSA into Dubit.