Expert: Scott Valentine - 7/13/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hello Scott

I will try to keep this as short and concise as possible.  

I am the lab manager of a science laboratory (Windows computes) at a university.  We have used a graphics program called Canvas to make our figures for publications, presentations, etc.  Our figures are nothing too fancy...tabular data from Microsoft excel input into a formula, which makes an output consisting of a bunch of squiggly lines that are filled with color and export into a format such as .emf and input into our graphics program (please see attached).

The problem is is that Canvas is VERY OBSOLETE, so we looking to get a little more up to date.  We keep hearing about Photoshop, which I downloaded the free trial.  So far...so good.  It seems to have amazing capabilities.  However, I can not figure out how to 'grab' an image (jpeg, emf, tiff, etc) and shrink/expand to get all of our cm (y axis) to line up (see image), which can be done on canvas, as well as on Powerpoint, Word, etc.  Can this be done on Photoshop?  If so, how?  This is a very important feature for our work.  (Note...all sets of lines are separate images...they just need to be shrunk/expanded manually).

Thank you!!!

Thomas

ANSWER: Hi Thomas,

I think Photoshop can do what you need, but I'm not really clear on how you are planning to use it... Photoshop will not do any data generation itself, but it will give you the ability to normalize all of your graphs as flat images.

Can you tell me your current work flow? If you are generating your charts in Excel, you can either do a 'screen grab' of the charts after you've sized it in Excel, or you can print the graphs to a PDF and import that file. The advantage to resizing in Excel is that your data will scale properly without distortion.

Grabbing the image from your screen is best done with a dedicated application. You can certainly use the Print Screen function in Windows, but there are applications that let you choose windows, application frames, scrolling pages, etc. These Screen Capture utilities range from free to decidedly not free; a web search will turn up tons of results.

So, the idea is that you size your images in Excel, use the screen capture utility to select the image and save it to your data or presentation folder, then open them in Photoshop to create a single graphic (and resize as needed).

Please let me know if I've missed your question. I do quite a bit of presentation and technical graphics, and I know how frustrating some of these things can be. It may be that you need a different graphing application that is better suited to your particular needs, but I don't want to get too far afield of your requirements.

-Scott

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Scott

Thanks for the prompt reply.

I think you are on the right track in terms of your response...the solution might be an easy one, I am just not familiar with Photoshop.

I know that when I used 'Canvas' software, a new 'project' screen was sort of like a canvas, no pun intended.  Here, I could open up numerous files of figures (jpegs, tiffs, emfs, etc) and stretch them according to scale.  

I want to try to do the same thing with Photoshop.  I do not need Photshop for any data input, manipulation, etc.  I just want to open up a blank screen, project, canvas, 'piece of paper, etc on the screen, like a blank slide on a powerpoint.  Then, input a few different files on the same screen, bring down the rulers so I can align these y axes, then manually shrink/expand as needed.  Can this happen on Photoshop??

Thanks again!!

Tom

Answer
Yes - you simply need to 'Place' each file into a new document. I suggest that you put each file/image on a new layer so you can move and manipulate them individually with greater ease.

There is a scale tool built into Photoshop under Edit > Transform. Read the help file for tips on how to constrain the transform tool to lock aspect ratio and other information about using Transform. Pay special attention to the resampling - use Bicubic when scaling to help preserve detail in your graphs.

Since you are using screen captures, be aware that your image quality may suffer if you resize too much. If possible, consider scaling your graphics to as large as possible in Excel, even if that means you have to fill up the screen with 1/2 of the image and capture it twice. You can easily paste the two halves together into a new file, then place that as a Smart Object into your final image document. The advantage of Smart Objects is that they refer to the original document, and the let you scale or modify the image in the target document (e.g., the final graphic) without degrading resolution - you are changing the reference, not the original. It's a bit confusing, so if you think you need to go that route, just ask and I'll help you with the steps.

I hope this gets you what you need!

-Scott