Topic Title

I suspect I already know the answer, but I'm curious about others' opinions or experiences...

Last week I imported three digital images into a simple CAD drawings for a zoning submission as bitmaps. In the past I used a photo scanner to scan-in as b/w images from 4x6 color prints taken with my old reliable 35mm Pentax. This winter I bought a Canon 16 mega-pixel digital cam and directly download the pics into project-dedicated folders on the CAD-PC's hard-drive for archive and later use. When I inserted three of them into a 1/8"-scale drawing on 11x17 tabloid paper and tried to print as .pdf's....I wound-up with a 86-meg .pdf file. The file actually prints...but took hours(?) to generate and where WAY-TOO BIG to e-mail as .pdfs.

My supposition is that the native-format .jpg files from the camera are much-too detailed for what's needed to have a decent image in the CAD file. I am assuming that what I needed to do was open the .jpgs in Photoshop Elements or some similar photo-program and reduce the pixel-resolution and the final print resolution to maybe 300-dpi at 4"x6",maybe even as b/w images.....then import the lower-res images as the bitmaps images in the CAD file for printing and .pdfs.

Thoughts?

The camera should allow you to choose a lesser resolution. I have a 12mp cheap camera and get satisfactory results if the camera resolution setting results in a jpg of between 750kb and 1Mb (about half way on a slide adjuster if I remember correctly). I guess the high resolution settings are for printing that will compete with film quality. Which you cannot do now as film is unavailable?

My supposition is that the native-format .jpg files from the camera are much-too detailed for what's needed to have a decent image in the CAD file. I am assuming that what I needed to do was open the .jpgs in Photoshop Elements or some similar photo-program and reduce the pixel-resolution and the final print resolution to maybe 300-dpi at 4"x6",maybe even as b/w images.....then import the lower-res images as the bitmaps images in the CAD file for printing and .pdfs.

Dead right. You are suffering from an excess of megapixels. This is an affliction common to amateur photographers but they need them to brag about in bars. Professionals like yourself can get by with five at most, and two is plenty for 4x6 stick-ins for DataCad. I'm sure every digital camera can be set to produce pictures of about 1 megapixel or so. If yours doesn't, replace it with one that does. It will cost you about $50, and also will fit in your pocket. When you do, you will be amazed how many pictures fit on the card. Don't be tempted, keep thinking Pentax.....

You will also be amazed at how fast the pictures download and print.

If you don't already have PhotoShop, you can resize the pictures you have in Irfanview. Irfan is free and much faster than Photoshop.

Welcome to the world of digital.