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Latest additions -

Southampton area map, 1824

East Canada map, 1853

West Canada map, 1853

Denmark map, 1853

Asia Minor map, 1853

Bath city plan, 1810

Europe map, 1770

World map, 1808

Edinburgh plan, 1865

Asia map, 1770

Two Boston views, 1840

Information / tips on image processing

The antique map and print downloads in this section of my website are all direct scans taken from items I have held as stock. Generally they are of 500dpi (dots per inch) resolution, which is very detailed and adequate for giclee printing. All the images are supplied as .JPG files with zero compression.

Please note that as these are scans of antiques the originals are usually not perfect, some do show small amounts of soiling or stains. I remove or clean up the more major faults, but there can be other smaller faults visible in my downloads. This is to be expected with such images and is part of their character, those proficient with an image editor will be able to clean up the images further if needed.

1. Backup
Once downloaded I strongly suggest the image is first copied and stored as a backup in case of errors in subsequent processing!

2. Saving the image
The stock images are supplied as .JPG files with no compression. After any alterations or changes are made it is best to use a 'lossless' image format to save the altered file. Such as .TIFF or .JPG with maximum quality (i.e. no compression if possible.)

3. Sharpness
Each map or print has a full resolution preview detail. It can be seen that the image is sometimes slightly blurred, this is because of the high resolution, near the optical limit of my scanner. Once downloaded the large image can be sharpened slightly as below and then re-saved -

	To the left is a portion of a map as supplied. NOTE - This example is more blurred than is normal.
	This is the same image with a low level of sharpening
	This is the same image with a higher level of sharpening

4. Re-sizing
If the image is to be re-sized to a smaller size it can sometimes help produce a clearer image to apply a blur first, perform the re-size, and then apply a sharpen.

5. Colours
Once a backup has been made it may be necessary to alter the colour, tone, contrast etc. to suit.
I suggest a small portion of the image is copied to a new file for testing the effects, then once happy to apply the effects/filters to the whole image. This can save much time as some filters are slow to work on large images.