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Topic: software for scanning labels

11th Sep 2017, 10:03 AM
	Scratchy45 In Revived 45s, disinterred 33&1/3s, saved 78s Member since Jul 2011 782 Points	[EDIT] Apologies: forgot I was writing for the 78rpm forum where labels are the concern. As a Windows user, I tend to go for a 2-stage approach on the "horses for courses" principle, and use 2 different open-source programs. The first (IrfanView) is for the stuff that can be done on a "point-and shoot" sort of basis, and the second (Gimp) for the things I can't do in IrfanView (e.g. label crops). Stage1: I kick off scanning from within Irfanview. Rectangular images are normally a snip to rotate/flip (LRVH keys), crop (default rectangular select, then Edit/Crop Selection), and scale ( Image/Resize-Resample). Unless further image manipulation is required, rectangular scanned images will be good to go. I do most initial off-kilter image rotation by eye through the "Paint" functions toggled on/off through the F12 key on Windows hardware - the Straighten/Rotate tool is found underneath bucket fill. Identify straight edge in image to use, Move to first point on this edge, Hold down notional left mouse button, Move to 2nd point on edge (observing the guide line), release mouse button. NB: toggle Paint off again with F12 before cropping. Stage 2: I use Gimp (with toolbox visible) to produce circular images for label crops, and do circular image sizing I've NEVER EVER had to go through the arcane sequence MagicMarmalade describes. I do everything in JPG format and go through a sequence as follows to produce a circular label image: Click on Ellipse select tool and then Select on label image. "Edit/Copy". "Edit/Paste to new image", "Image/scale", "File/Export" to a new image. If the original selection is no good, close the new image window, adjust selection and repeat until OK. Export rather than Save is a bit of a pain, but it's a minor gripe. Ignore the "unsaved changes" messages during "File/Close View" or "File/Close All" - they're irrelevant. I do something similar for photos, but the functions required are different ones For example, Gimp's "Tools/Transform tools/Perspective" is handy to manipulate sleeve pic photos (many have perspective artefacts) after cropping to a larger square around the sleeve pic. Stretch the image to the limits of the square - not foolproof, but a workable solution. Edited by Scratchy45 on 12th Sep 2017, 1:37 AM