Sorry if this is in the wrong section, Dave - feel free to move it.

As I noticed with my latest input (Wasp), I have problems with images I scan. When I resize them afterwards, some of them get quite pixellated. Now, I only have very basic imaging software, and I’m not hugely savvy about my scanner.

Can anyone give me any tips?

Perhaps not much of a help, but:

When I personally have to scan artwork, I scan it at the highest resolution.  Then when resizing, I use the one graphics program that I’ve become attached to – Gimp.  It has a version for Windows.  With Gimp, when I resize I can then send the image through a filter to improve on contrast, smoothness, etc.  There are even enhancement filters. 

As an alternative, if you prefer the computer environment, you could always get a tablet and think BIG.  For anything we wanted to put on cups, hats, shirts, etc., at another site, the original had to be huge in order to prevent pixelation.  You can always size down, but sizing up is a bear.

Boo,

It sounds like you’re resizing them to make them bigger - is that right?  Resizing them to make them smaller should not pixillate them at all.  But there is another element that you might want to know about: “lossy” compression.  Lossy compression is a way to fit an image into a smaller file, but it loses some of the information about the image and so the quality of the image goes down - often making it look blocky.  jpg files use lossy compression.  So the first time you save a file as jpg, it’s quality will go down a little bit.

Anyway, Iconocast nailed it with the resolution - if you scan it at a higher resolution, your results should be better.  Also, there is some imaging software that doesn’t do a very good job - what program are you using to resize your images?

Dave.