On 3/17/2010 3:55 PM, bennettjon wrote:

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

Any idea what to do to keep it looking sharp and get rid of the fuzziness?

Thanks,

It would be great if you could show us an example.

It is my understanding that it is fuzzy after you save it, but not fuzzy when viewed in gimp? Is this correct?

Stefan Maerz

bennettjon wrote:

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

What is the size of your characters? Could you show an example of your logo?

On 3/22/2010 3:22 PM, bennettjon wrote:

You can see the logo at www.breathewell.com

Ok, well, what I meant was if you could show us a picture of the saved file that is fuzzy, not the good looking one.

However, my guess is that you are compressing it too much or a wrong filetype when you save it.

Step by step it should be like this when you save, I don't know exactly what you have done while you are saving, so I go through step by step just in case:
1. File/Save
2. Find your directory
3. Type a name for your file followed by either .jpg or .png

4a.If saving as a JPEG, then hit save button, and make sure the quality is around 85. Note if you hit the "show preview in image window" check box, it will calculate a file size and show you a preview. You will probably have to export it to a flattened image somewhere in this step.

4b.If saving as a PNG, then from my understanding the Compression level does not affect image quality, however it affects file size and rendering time. I would set the compression to 9, as it will create a nice small file size for you. I would also hit the "load defaults" button, just in case one of these settings got hit.

If you could upload the picture that is fuzzy to a host like image shack and share it with us, it would probably help us out if the saving fix I suggested does not work.

Stefan Maerz

On 3/22/2010 3:51 PM, bennettjon wrote:

Thanks Stefan for the quick reply. I will upload some images. However, the issue is not fuzziness in GIMP. The fuzziness occurs when inserting into Word or Excel and either printing or converting to PDF.

Ok, that makes much more sense. Issues like that spring up from time to time on this mailing list.

3/22/2010 9:55 PM keltezéssel, bennettjon írta:

On 3/22/2010 3:51 PM, bennettjon wrote:

Thanks Stefan for the quick reply. I will upload some images. However,

the

issue is not fuzziness in GIMP. The fuzziness occurs when inserting into

Word

or Excel and either printing or converting to PDF.

Ok, that makes much more sense. Issues like that spring up from time to time on this mailing list.

So what is the solution?

Hi!

I make a lot of word documents packed with photos and other kinds of bitmap pictures in them,
and I usually make pdf of them as a result. This is part of my work.

From the behavior of these documents I got to the conclusion that Word stores all bitmap pictures
in a jpg format. This is independent from the source of the picture (whether it was inserted as a picture file or just pasted from the clipboard.) So, every time I save the document, more and more jpeg errors
are produced in all pictures. This effect can be reduced if the resolution of the images is kept high (eg. 200 dpi), but this makes the filesize big and is not an option for all kinds of pictures.
This effect is mostly annoying in case of pictures thats natural format would be png: that include
just a few colors, like drawings and screenshots. These pictures are made ugly and make the filesize
irrationally big.

Moreover, when I print to pdf, all the pictures are made 96 dpi (just a guess, it seems to be optimized for
screen), and full of jpeg noise. So, the pdf-s are even more ugly than the doc. I don't know any options
that could be set in pdf creation.

I think that a good pdf printer should have some settings for image compression, and office should have
more options. I only know of the compression rate, where you have three options: leave it big,
set to 200 dpi (for prinit), or set to 96 dpi (screen). I think this is quite poor. I know some about word,
but there is much more that I don't know, so there may be more advanced settings. But I doubt.

So, if anyone knows an answer, please let us know!

Abel

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:41:09 +0100, T?kés Ábel wrote:

From the behavior of these documents I got to the conclusion that Word stores all bitmap pictures in a jpg format. This is independent from the source of the picture (whether it was inserted as a picture file or just pasted from the clipboard.) So, every time I save the document, more and more jpeg errors are produced in all pictures.

This is not true, or at least not true in just any case.

Look at the these two snapshots http://www.secarica.ro/misc/png_test.png http://www.secarica.ro/misc/png_test_word_to_paint.png

The png_test_word_to_paint.png is the result of this: I opened a blank Word document (Office 2003) I dragged the file test.png onto it
I saved the document without closing I wrote something
I closed the document with save
I opened the document and wrote something I closed the document with save
I opened the document
I copied the image in clipboard
I opened Paint and pasted the clipboard there I saved the image from Paint as .png

Ok, the saved image has fewer colors (so it is no longer the perfect original), but as it looks it has *never* been in JPEG format.

Cristi

3/23/2010 1:20 PM keltezéssel, Cristian Secar? írta:

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:41:09 +0100, T?kés Ábel wrote:

From the behavior of these documents I got to the conclusion that Word stores all bitmap pictures in a jpg format. This is independent from the source of the picture (whether it was inserted as a picture file or just pasted from the clipboard.) So, every time I save the document, more and more jpeg errors are produced in all pictures.

This is not true, or at least not true in just any case.

Look at the these two snapshots http://www.secarica.ro/misc/png_test.png http://www.secarica.ro/misc/png_test_word_to_paint.png

The png_test_word_to_paint.png is the result of this: I opened a blank Word document (Office 2003) I dragged the file test.png onto it
I saved the document without closing I wrote something
I closed the document with save
I opened the document and wrote something I closed the document with save
I opened the document
I copied the image in clipboard
I opened Paint and pasted the clipboard there I saved the image from Paint as .png

Ok, the saved image has fewer colors (so it is no longer the perfect original), but as it looks it has *never* been in JPEG format.

Cristi

You are right. I wasn't able to reproduce jpeg failures with Word. I thought that it came from image compression, but I wasn't able to make noise by it either. I will have to find out where noisy images in my docs come from. It seems that Word is more clever that I supposed.

For me it seems that the problem is with the pdf printer. I tried Adobe Elements and
CutePDF. Both added jpeg noise. Surprisingly, CutePDF gave somewhat better results,
though it was free and we paid for Elements, and I prefer Elements in most cases.

I am afraid we are becoming more and more offtopic, as this is obviously a pdf printer issue,
and probably office issue, but not Gimp issue.

Abel

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 9:48 AM, bennettjon wrote:

I think you are right...but it affects all of us as Gimp users, as we are creating images in Gimp that we ultimately want to use in PDF docs.

A shot in the dark - have you tried using OpenOffice instead of Word?

Create a new doc, paste in (or insert) your image, then File->Export PDF.

Chris

PS - Scribus also produces quality PDFs, but may not be usable on Windows (or it wasn't the last time I checked, but that was quite some time ago).

On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:09:40 +0100 (CET), bennettjon wrote:

But, we still don't have a good solution to using these images in Word and converting to PDF without the noise. Of course, it's possible - I've seen it many times. There must be a process to do this successfully. Does anyone know how?

When I need clean images in a .pdf document (assuming I have clean lossless format images in the source document), I use either of the two:

1. I have Adobe PostScript driver installed as a printer, with which I create .ps files; then I use Adobe Acrobat Distiller 5 (version 5, because this is what I have; don't know about more recent versions) with Settings -> Job Options... -> Compression -> both "color images" and "grayscale images" set to ZIP
or
2. I use OpenOffice Writer (or use OO also for MS Word documents if the slightly layout differences are not strict) and create the .pdf with the OO built-in menu command

(Scribus is also a good option, but may be a different thing/scope)

Otherwise I tried Ghostscript & GSView, or PDFWriter, but I have never been able to find an option to force the creation of a .pdf with images *not* converted to JPEG.

Cristi

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

Any idea what to do to keep it looking sharp and get rid of the fuzziness?

Thanks,

On 28/09/2010 20:01, forums@gimpusers.com wrote:

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.
Any idea what to do to keep it looking sharp and get rid of the fuzziness?

Depends what you call fuzzy. Do you have a screen-shot? Or even better, your XCF file?

Fuzziness may come from the "feathering". But lack of feathering can also create another kind of fuzziness.

JPEG doesn't support transparency.

Finally - one I may be able to answer ..

Try scaling the image close to the size and resolution you expect to print _before_ you add the text. I believe the text is essentially bitmapped onto your image when you add it. If your printing implies a substantial enlargement you may be looking at the edges of the text as it was rendered.

Just a guess, but I had a similar problem when I started out and that was the reason for ragged edges and fuzzy characters on my text. You may even want to create your image at higher resolution than you will print it

On 09/28/2010 05:11 PM, John Mills wrote:

Finally - one I may be able to answer ..

Try scaling the image close to the size and resolution you expect to print _before_ you add the text. I believe the text is essentially bitmapped onto your image when you add it. If your printing implies a substantial enlargement you may be looking at the edges of the text as it was rendered.

Just a guess, but I had a similar problem when I started out and that was the reason for ragged edges and fuzzy characters on my text. You may even want to create your image at higher resolution than you will print it -- at least once or twice as experiments.

HTH.

- Mills

On Tue, 28 Sep 2010, forums@gimpusers.com wrote:

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

Any idea what to do to keep it looking sharp and get rid of the fuzziness?

Thanks,

dev19 (via gimpusers.com)

I agree completely with Mills and a previous poster. I find that 99% of the time logos have been created at too low a resolution.

Because the target size of a logo can vary tremendously (from business cards to the side of a 40-foot-long truck) it is extremely important to do the creation (and to maintain the original file) at very high resolution.

You might think it absurd to create logo artwork at 2000 dpi, until next year when you need to put it on a 8-foot-wide banner or the side of a building.

Save the "original" at that high resolution -- and be sure to save multiple copies in multiple physical locations; that logo might be in use for 20 years or more (mine is almost at 30 years) and they have a way of getting misplaced.

Then when you need to make a new target, COPY the original file to target-specific name. Then, after copying, size it down and *simultaneously* reduce the resolution to the appropriate resolution for the output device (i.e. laser printer probably 300 or 600 dpi).

Also, depending upon the type of artwork, consider using a vector-based image program instead of a bitmap-based program such as Gimp. A vector-based image is supposed (?) to scale up and down without any of these issues, but it is not appropriate for all types of images.

Jay

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

Scaling is one reason for the fuzziness, the second is compression. JPEG, GIF, and PNG are compressed formats (though PNG can be uncompressed), so the compression can lead to fuzziness around the edges. You could try to save in an uncompressed format, or reduce the compression (i.e. if you save JPEG and you get that slider during export, push it all the way up to 100).

In general though, a logo is an image that gets a lot of use. It will likely be scaled or compressed for various different paper sizes, Internet publication, banners, etc. It's a good idea to do logo design in an inherently scalable (a.k.a vector) format (i.e. Scalable Vector Graphics Format... SVG). I don't mean to knock Gimp on the Gimp list, but it might not be the right tool for the job. Inkscape is an open source tool for designing scalable images. Adobe Illustrator is a proprietary alternative. They don't have the powerful tools that Gimp does for creating really exotic images, but that is likely a moot point for a logo.

If you create your image in a scalable format you can also use it in your PDF documents without any loss of quality... regardless of whether that document is a letter-head, or a building-sized banner. If you include your logo as a 2 inch wide image, and then someone who is reading your document blows it up to 1000%, the logo will still be crystal clear. This, of course, depends on what you use to create your PDF. Word, for instance, may render the scalable image to a bitmap, and then save the bitmap in the PDF.

On 28/09/2010 23:43, Josh Bialkowski wrote:

I'm new to Gimp and graphic design. I was able to create a logo with a transparent background. However, when I convert to jpg gif or png and then upload to my server (or insert into Word or PDF) it's fuzzy around the letters.

Scaling is one reason for the fuzziness, the second is compression. JPEG, GIF, and PNG are compressed formats (though PNG can be uncompressed), so the compression can lead to fuzziness around the edges. You could try to save in an uncompressed format, or reduce the compression (i.e. if you save JPEG and you get that slider during export, push it all the way up to 100).

Do not mix up plain compression and lossy compression. JPEG is lossy and can lead to artifacts. GIF and PNG aren't (although GIF, being restricted to 256 unique colors, can suffer from dithering).

I otherwise fully agree with the vector graphic suggestion.

On 28 Sep 10 20:12 Ofnuts said:

Fuzziness may come from the "feathering". But lack of feathering can also create another kind of fuzziness.

JPEG artifacts are likely to give text or any area around solid colour "fuzziness" too!

Greg Chapman
http://www.gregtutor.plus.com
Helping new users of KompoZer and The GIMP