How to Print Pamphlets

and

The Display Quality of Documents and Photographs

 

This document was last updated on Wednesday, March 20, 2002

How to print the pamphlets - The pamphlets can be printed on-line. Ensure that the orientation is in Landscape mode and all the margins are set 0.25 inches (6.35 mm) - this setting is printer dependent. Also the image (.gif) files can saved in your computer and printed off-line.

A two-sided pamphlet can be produced by a copier that has the capability to take two pages and create a single page, front and back. Alternatively, make copies of the first page and use those copies and the second page to produce a front and back pamphlet. Most copy shops can demonstrate this.

I used Coral Word Perfect 8 to create the pamphlets. Please contact me, in the event that you want the pamphlet

Display Formats - I am aware of four display formats. 'True Color' at 4 bytes per pixel where each of 3 bytes defines the intensities of the Red, Green, and Blue hues and the forth byte controls other attributes such as blinking, transparency, and precedence. The 3 bytes 'True Color' model is similar to the 4-byte model but lacks the attribute byte. However, both models can display 16,777,216 colors.

The 'High Color' 2 byte format defines the intensities of Red, Green, and Blue hues using a 5-5-5 bit model or a 5-6-5 model and can display 125 or 150 colors out of a palette of 32,768 (with or without the blink attribute) or 65,636.

The 1 byte display format can display 256 colors out of a palette of 16,777,216. This is accomplished by the use of a video lookup table (VLT). The value of every byte in the display is an index to an entry in the VLT. Each entry in the video lookup table defines a particular hue and intensity and some VLTs have attribute bits to control blinking, transparency, and precedence. The useful part of this scheme is that one can change the hue and intensity of a collection of pixels without rewriting the image. This is useful in medical, dental, and astronomical applications. For an example, I revealed an eruption on Io, one of Jupiter's moons, through the manipulation of a VLT.

The following tables describe the Video RAM storage requirements for images at three resolutions and four display formats.

Full Screen Video RAM Storage Requirements

Bytes per Pixel 640 x 480 resolution 800 x 600 resolution 1280 x 1024 resolution
4 1,228,800 bytes 1,920,000 bytes 5,242,880 bytes
3 921,600 bytes 1,440,000 bytes 3,932,160 bytes
2 614,400 bytes 960,000 bytes 2,621,440 bytes
1 307,200 bytes 480,000 bytes 1,310,720 bytes

 

Video RAM Requirements for a 5 x 3.5 inch Photograph in an 11 x 8.5 Display Space

Bytes per Pixel 640 x 480 resolution 800 x 600 resolution 1280 x 1024 resolution
4 230,472 bytes 361,088 bytes 982,416 bytes
3 172,854 bytes 270,816 bytes 736,812 bytes
2 115,236 bytes 180,544 bytes 491,208 bytes
1 57,618 bytes 90,272 bytes 245,604 bytes

There are many image file formats. I like the Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) because of its versatility. Unfortunately, most Web browsers do not support it.

Many Web browsers support the JPEG format. The problem with JPEG is that it requires 3 bytes per pixel and sacrifices hue for intensity during compression resulting in color shifts and loss of detail.

The GIF format is also supported by many Web and requires only 1 byte per pixel. The problem with GIF is that the video hardware can display only 256 colors out a palette of 16,777,216. Some Super VGA cards support only 216 colors.

For a better understanding of what I am writing about please refer to "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics" by J.D. Foley and A. Van Dam, Chapter 17, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

 

Edward S. Nunes