Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications

Scaling Down

Remember that scaling down also requires interpolation. While the loss of data may not be quite so obvious when you reduce the size of an image, there will be some softening of detail (as shown in Figure 4.4), so it’s still best to plan ahead, and make your initial scan as close as possible to the dimensions at which you intend to use it in a page-layout program. Generally, if you find it necessary to scale an image down below 50–75 percent in your page layout, consider rescanning. And, as with enlargements, try to use an even scaling factor, such as 120 percent rather than 119.6954 percent.

Figure 4.4. Surprise! Even scaling down an image can slightly soften detail, because so much information is discarded. The image at the lower ...