[Vic B.]

I saved a map to a jpeg file and took it to my local Officemax for printing. When printing a smaller size (approx. 8 x 11), the map looks great. When printing a large map (24 x 36) the labels and trails start to blur. I uerstand that this is similar to taking a 5 x 7 picture and trying to print a much larger print. Is there anything that I can do differently when I create and save the map to the jpeg file that would allow me to print a larger map without the distortion?

Vic

[Tim Osborn]

I would recommend that, rather than creating a jpeg file, you use invoke the "Print Map Window" dialog under the Map Menu in concert with an Adobe PDF file creating printer driver. You may already have Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the Reader). If not, there are many PDF file creation printer drivers that are freely available for download on the Internet. When you "print" your map, you specify the Adobe PDF file "printer." This will cause a PDF file to be created that you can then take to OfficeMax for printing at an enlarge size. The background topographic map or aerial photo will probably suffer somewhat from too few pixels being spread across too large a space. But the waypoints, routes, tracks, shapes, comments and labels you've created on your map should look sharp at any size because they are saved in the PDF file as vector objects rather than being rasterized as in the jpeg file approach.

[Carl L Hurst]

Also, you can export the image file in TIFF format which can be enlarged more than a JPEG before distortion starts.

[Dan Foster]

Another option is to use the online map printing services from mytopo.com or offroute.com - both can overlay ExpertGPS GPX files.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 3 2009, 12:50 AM, said:

I would recommend that, rather than creating a jpeg file, you use invoke the "Print Map Window" dialog under the Map Menu in concert with an Adobe PDF file creating printer driver. You may already have Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the Reader). If not, there are many PDF file creation printer drivers that are freely available for download on the Internet. When you "print" your map, you specify the Adobe PDF file "printer." This will cause a PDF file to be created that you can then take to OfficeMax for printing at an enlarge size. The background topographic map or aerial photo will probably suffer somewhat from too few pixels being spread across too large a space. But the waypoints, routes, tracks, shapes, comments and labels you've created on your map should look sharp at any size because they are saved in the PDF file as vector objects rather than being rasterized as in the jpeg file approach.

Thanks for the suggestion. Before going the PDF route I am going to try exporting the map as a tiff file and see if this works. Are you familar with the width and height boxes in the export window? How do these affect the exported file and is there a default value?

Vic

[Vic B.]

Carl L Hurst, on Dec 3 2009, 03:53 PM, said:

Also, you can export the image file in TIFF format which can be enlarged more than a JPEG before distortion starts.

Thanks for the tiff suggestion. I will try this before trying Tim's PDF suggestion (easier for me). I will ask you the same question I asked Tim. Are you familar with the width and height boxes in the export window? How do these affect the exported file and is there a default value? I cannot find much info regarding these boxes in the manual.

Vic

[Tim Osborn]

The height and width fields are where you specify the pixel dimensions of the resulting image. If you put in 1000 and 1000, your image will be 1000 pixels wide and 1000 pixels tall. The higher the numbers, the larger the image and the greater the geographic area the image will cover for a given map scale. There is no meaningful default value....it's just depends on how big an image you want.

If you are exporting an image with a topo map background, to get the highest topo map resolution make sure ExpertGPS is displaying the map at 1:15118 scale. This is equivalent to 4 meters per pixel which is the highest resolution of topo map tiles that ExpertGPS downloads from Terraserver. If you are exporting an image with an aerial photo background, to get the highest geographic resolution in your aerial photo make sure ExpertGPS is displaying at 1:7559 scale or 2 meters per pixel.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 11 2009, 01:29 AM, said:

The height and width fields are where you specify the pixel dimensions of the resulting image. If you put in 1000 and 1000, your image will be 1000 pixels wide and 1000 pixels tall. The higher the numbers, the larger the image and the greater the geographic area the image will cover for a given map scale. There is no meaningful default value....it's just depends on how big an image you want.

If you are exporting an image with a topo map background, to get the highest topo map resolution make sure ExpertGPS is displaying the map at 1:15118 scale. This is equivalent to 4 meters per pixel which is the highest resolution of topo map tiles that ExpertGPS downloads from Terraserver. If you are exporting an image with an aerial photo background, to get the highest geographic resolution in your aerial photo make sure ExpertGPS is displaying at 1:7559 scale or 2 meters per pixel.

Thanks again for your help. I am trying to print a scanned map (county parks sent to me as a jpeg map). Is there a place I can look to find the map scale for a scanned map in order to get the best resolution? I think I have seen somwhere that 1:24000 is a common scale. Assume that I do use the 1:24000 scale, should I then try to use the largest pixel number (height & width) without running out of memory? Will using the best scale and the highest pixel count allow me to print a larger map before the trails and labels become fuzzy? I am going to export as a tiff file.

I still don't quite understand why the exported file shows up as a smaller image when I increase the pixel count. I am looking at the exported map image in the "windows photo gallery."

[Tim Osborn]

I didn't know you were talking about a scanned map. The information I gave above assumed you were interested in printing out the topo or aerial photo maps that ExpertGPS automatically downloads from Terraserver USA.

Before we go further, it would be helpful if you answered the following questions:

1) Have you actually loaded the scanned map into ExpertGPS and calibrated it?

2) Are you wanting to print the scanned map bare as you received it, or are you wanting to print it with waypoints, tracks, routes, shapes, and/or comments you've overlayed on it via ExpertGPS?

3) What is your desired size for the final printed map (e.g. 8.5" x 11", 24" x 36")?

4) Are you wanting to print the whole map, or a smaller "area of interest" contained within the map?

5) At what final resolution will OfficeMax print the map (e.g. 300 pixels per inch)?

6) Do you care whether the final map is at a certain scale such as 1:24,000, or is scale less important than overall size?

7) Finally, it would help if you uploaded the jpeg scanned map to this thread, as well as any gpx file you may have created on it so that we can look at it in terms of overall pixel count, geographic resolution, and area of interest.

[Vic B.]

[quote name='Tim Osborn' date='Dec 13 2009, 03:30 AM' post='9242']
I didn't know you were talking about a scanned map. The information I gave above assumed you were interested in printing out the topo or aerial photo maps that ExpertGPS automatically downloads from Terraserver USA.

Before we go further, it would be helpful if you answered the following questions:

1) Have you actually loaded the scanned map into ExpertGPS and calibrated it?

2) Are you wanting to print the scanned map bare as you received it, or are you wanting to print it with waypoints, tracks, routes, shapes, and/or comments you've overlayed on it via ExpertGPS?

3) What is your desired size for the final printed map (e.g. 8.5" x 11", 24" x 36")?

4) Are you wanting to print the whole map, or a smaller "area of interest" contained within the map?

5) At what final resolution will OfficeMax print the map (e.g. 300 pixels per inch)?

6) Do you care whether the final map is at a certain scale such as 1:24,000, or is scale less important than overall size?

7) Finally, it would help if you uploaded the jpeg scanned map to this thread, as well as any gpx file you may have created on it so that we can look at it in terms of overall pixel count, geographic resolution, and area of interest.


1) Yes, I have loaded the map and calibrated it.

2) I want to print the map with waypoints and tracks that I have added.

3) The person I am doing this for would like a 24" x 36", but they will accept an 18" x 24".

4) I want to print the whole map.

5) I am not sure, I have not discussed this with them. They just take my exported image and print it.

6)I still don't have a real good handle on the scale, so I would say that the overall size is more important.

7)I will try and upload in my next reply. I have not uploaded any data to the forum, so I will have to research this a little before I can upload.

Thanks a bunch for your help.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 13 2009, 02:30 AM, said:

I didn't know you were talking about a scanned map. The information I gave above assumed you were interested in printing out the topo or aerial photo maps that ExpertGPS automatically downloads from Terraserver USA.

Before we go further, it would be helpful if you answered the following questions:

1) Have you actually loaded the scanned map into ExpertGPS and calibrated it?

2) Are you wanting to print the scanned map bare as you received it, or are you wanting to print it with waypoints, tracks, routes, shapes, and/or comments you've overlayed on it via ExpertGPS?

3) What is your desired size for the final printed map (e.g. 8.5" x 11", 24" x 36")?

4) Are you wanting to print the whole map, or a smaller "area of interest" contained within the map?

5) At what final resolution will OfficeMax print the map (e.g. 300 pixels per inch)?

6) Do you care whether the final map is at a certain scale such as 1:24,000, or is scale less important than overall size?

7) Finally, it would help if you uploaded the jpeg scanned map to this thread, as well as any gpx file you may have created on it so that we can look at it in terms of overall pixel count, geographic resolution, and area of interest.

I am trying to upload the scanned jpeg file and my tracks and waypoints file.

Attached File(s)

•  StateCountyParks_17x22_2.jpg (5.6MB)
  Number of downloads: 5
•  Kraus_Park__Map.gpx (455.41K)
  Number of downloads: 7

[Tim Osborn]

You have plenty of pixels in the image to be able to print it large and have it look good. It is 6600 pixels wide and 5100 pixels tall. At 300 pixels per inch that would print out at 22 inches wide by 17 inches tall. If you wanted to go to 31 inches wide by 24 inches tall (maintaining the original aspect ratio of the image) the print resolution would be 212.5 pixels per inch without any interpolation, which would still be pretty good.

In creating an output image with the map and your data overlayed, you would want to try to preserve all the pixels you have in the original image. For example, it wouldn't make much sense to output an image with 3300 pixels by 2550 pixels and then ask the people at OfficeMax to print it out at 22x17 inches. You'd have half the resolution you started out with in the background image.

So, here's what you could do.

1) Click on "Go", then "Scanned Map", then "Center" to place yourself in the center of the scanned map.

2) Click on "Map", then "Zoom", then "Zoom to Scale" and make the Scale 1:5200 (found by trial and error)

3) Click on "Map", then "Export Image", then enter 6600 for the width and 5100 for the height and create the image.

The resulting image will be the image you started out with in overall pixel size but will have your tracks and waypoints overlayed. Unfortunately, the width of the tracks and the size of the waypoints and text will probably be much narrower and smaller than you thought they were going to be. So, before you do this, it would be a good idea to double the width of all your tracks and and also increase the size of your text labels. I don't think there is much you can do to make the waypoint symbols much larger however.

I still feel the better approach is to produce a pdf file using the "Show Print Map Window" dialog. It doesn't seem to have the problem that the "make image" approach does with the need to widen track widths etc for such a large map. To do this you would define a custom paper size in the pdf printer driver (e.g. 22 x 17), and then find a scale under the "Show Print Map Window" where the whole map will be printed which is easy to see (in this case 1:16000). I've attached such a pdf file below.

Attached File(s)

•  KrausPark.pdf (6.02MB)
  Number of downloads: 9

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 13 2009, 11:03 PM, said:

You have plenty of pixels in the image to be able to print it large and have it look good. It is 6600 pixels wide and 5100 pixels tall. At 300 pixels per inch that would print out at 22 inches wide by 17 inches tall. If you wanted to go to 31 inches wide by 24 inches tall (maintaining the original aspect ratio of the image) the print resolution would be 212.5 pixels per inch without any interpolation, which would still be pretty good.

In creating an output image with the map and your data overlayed, you would want to try to preserve all the pixels you have in the original image. For example, it wouldn't make much sense to output an image with 3300 pixels by 2550 pixels and then ask the people at OfficeMax to print it out at 22x17 inches. You'd have half the resolution you started out with in the background image.

So, here's what you could do.

1) Click on "Go", then "Scanned Map", then "Center" to place yourself in the center of the scanned map.

2) Click on "Map", then "Zoom", then "Zoom to Scale" and make the Scale 1:5200 (found by trial and error)

3) Click on "Map", then "Export Image", then enter 6600 for the width and 5100 for the height and create the image.

The resulting image will be the image you started out with in overall pixel size but will have your tracks and waypoints overlayed. Unfortunately, the width of the tracks and the size of the waypoints and text will probably be much narrower and smaller than you thought they were going to be. So, before you do this, it would be a good idea to double the width of all your tracks and and also increase the size of your text labels. I don't think there is much you can do to make the waypoint symbols much larger however.

I still feel the better approach is to produce a pdf file using the "Show Print Map Window" dialog. It doesn't seem to have the problem that the "make image" approach does with the need to widen track widths etc for such a large map. To do this you would define a custom paper size in the pdf printer driver (e.g. 22 x 17), and then find a scale under the "Show Print Map Window" where the whole map will be printed which is easy to see (in this case 1:16000). I've attached such a pdf file below.

OK Tim, you have convinced me - I am going to try the PDF route. I was able to download a free PDF driver and create a map (not the size I wanted, but just a map). I will have to figure out how to set the output PDF print size and then try and get the correct scale. I am assuming that I can go as large as I want (24" x 31") for the output PDF print size without losing print quality. Will I have to tell OfficeMax anything about pixels per inch, or is that taken care of with the PDF driver?

[Tim Osborn]

I made a 31x24 version similar to the one I posted yesterday and it looks fine at 100 percent zoom on screen. When I "printed it" I used a scale of 1:11500. The resulting pdf file was a little over 13mb in size with the pdf printer driver set to downsample color images (e.g. your background jpeg map) to 150 dpi.

I'm using the pdf printer driver that comes a part of the full-blown Adobe Acrobat Professional software package. Hopefully your pdf printer driver will allow you to set custom pages sizes and downsample color images too.

When you give it to the OfficeMax people just tell them you want it printed with no scaling on a sheet of paper large enough to hold the pdf's page size of 31x24.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 15 2009, 01:32 AM, said:

I made a 31x24 version similar to the one I posted yesterday and it looks fine at 100 percent zoom on screen. When I "printed it" I used a scale of 1:11500. The resulting pdf file was a little over 13mb in size with the pdf printer driver set to downsample color images (e.g. your background jpeg map) to 150 dpi.

I'm using the pdf printer driver that comes a part of the full-blown Adobe Acrobat Professional software package. Hopefully your pdf printer driver will allow you to set custom pages sizes and downsample color images too.

When you give it to the OfficeMax people just tell them you want it printed with no scaling on a sheet of paper large enough to hold the pdf's page size of 31x24.

Close but no cigar yet. I apologize for continuing to bug you on this. However, could I confirm a couple of things and ask a question. I am trying to create the same map (31x24) as you did. Are you setting your PDF printer to 31" wide and 24" high, and are you setting it to print in landscape? When I set my printer to 31x24 with a scale of 11500, it appears to print in portarait and I cut off a little of both sides. I am using the bullzip PDF printer. It does have a custom page size, however, I have not been able to find a downsample color image setting.

[Tim Osborn]

I added a custom page size to my Adobe PDF printer driver that was located under Windows XP Control Panel: Printers & Faxes. I added it as 31 inches wide, by 24 inches tall. Then when I did "Print Setup" under ExpertGPS's "Show Map Print Window" dialog I selected that paper size with Portrait orientation selected. Don't worry about the downsizing images part in the driver. At most you'll just have a slightly larger pdf file.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 16 2009, 03:25 AM, said:

I added a custom page size to my Adobe PDF printer driver that was located under Windows XP Control Panel: Printers & Faxes. I added it as 31 inches wide, by 24 inches tall. Then when I did "Print Setup" under ExpertGPS's "Show Map Print Window" dialog I selected that paper size with Portrait orientation selected. Don't worry about the downsizing images part in the driver. At most you'll just have a slightly larger pdf file.

Almost. I was able to create a 31 x 24 PDF file. I took it to OfficeMax to confirm the size and to print a small section of the map. The quality looked good. I printed at 300 dpi, giving me a pdf file size of about 1.97mb. Was your pdf file 13mb or 1.3mb? If it was 13, then I don't understand why mine is only 1.97. Assuming I can print at a higher dpi, what would be the optimum dpi I should shoot for? The PDF driver also has a setting for pictures or graphics - make any difference.

Thanks.

[Tim Osborn]

Mine was 13mb, not 1.3. The original jpeg image of the State Park area that was used for the "scanned map" was 5.7mb all on it's own. The vector tracks, etc should add very little to the size of any file to which they are added.

When I created the 22x17 pdf (the same size as the original image at 300ppi), the size of the pdf I got was 6mb. When I created the 31x24 pdf, the size went up to 13mb. I guess my pdf printer driver uprezzed the map image and saved it as a jpeg in the pdf file. When I create a 31x24 version of the original image separately in Photoshop and saved it as a level 12 jpeg, it was about 13mb. My pdf printer driver was set to downsize any color image over 225ppi to 150ppi. But it looks like it didn't actually do that.

Anyway, I'd say if the quality of your final map looks good, and the pdf file is that small...that's great. Your pdf printer driver seems to be better setup than mine. 300 ppi would be as high as you need to go in terms of resolution. Your original map image isn't really that detailed...nothing like a photo for example.

I don't know what kind of a printer OfficeMax is using, but each printer has it's own optimum print resolution. For Epson printers, for example, you usually get your best results if your image has a resolution that is a factor of 720 (e.g 360, 240, 180). If, for example, the optimum resolution of the printer they are using is 320, and you feed it a 300ppi image, it will have to uprezz the image a little and probably won't look quite as good as if you gave it a 320ppi image to begin with. But these considerations primarily relate to getting the best photography out of a printer. Your original map image is not nearly as demanding as a photograph.

For choosing between the pictures setting versus the graphics setting I'd usually go with the pictures setting to get the best resolution. But again your particular scanned map may not really need it.

Added Later:
I went back and opened the 13mb 31x24 pdf file I had created in Adobe Acrobat Professional. There I found an option to "Reduce File Size." When I clicked on that, after about 30 seconds, the file size had been reduced to 1.9MB and looked as good as before. Guess I don't know all I should about Adobe Acrobat Professional.

[Vic B.]

Tim Osborn, on Dec 18 2009, 12:12 AM, said:

Mine was 13mb, not 1.3. The original jpeg image of the State Park area that was used for the "scanned map" was 5.7mb all on it's own. The vector tracks, etc should add very little to the size of any file to which they are added.

When I created the 22x17 pdf (the same size as the original image at 300ppi), the size of the pdf I got was 6mb. When I created the 31x24 pdf, the size went up to 13mb. I guess my pdf printer driver uprezzed the map image and saved it as a jpeg in the pdf file. When I create a 31x24 version of the original image separately in Photoshop and saved it as a level 12 jpeg, it was about 13mb. My pdf printer driver was set to downsize any color image over 225ppi to 150ppi. But it looks like it didn't actually do that.

Anyway, I'd say if the quality of your final map looks good, and the pdf file is that small...that's great. Your pdf printer driver seems to be better setup than mine. 300 ppi would be as high as you need to go in terms of resolution. Your original map image isn't really that detailed...nothing like a photo for example.

I don't know what kind of a printer OfficeMax is using, but each printer has it's own optimum print resolution. For Epson printers, for example, you usually get your best results if your image has a resolution that is a factor of 720 (e.g 360, 240, 180). If, for example, the optimum resolution of the printer they are using is 320, and you feed it a 300ppi image, it will have to uprezz the image a little and probably won't look quite as good as if you gave it a 320ppi image to begin with. But these considerations primarily relate to getting the best photography out of a printer. Your original map image is not nearly as demanding as a photograph.

For choosing between the pictures setting versus the graphics setting I'd usually go with the pictures setting to get the best resolution. But again your particular scanned map may not really need it.

Added Later:
I went back and opened the 13mb 31x24 pdf file I had created in Adobe Acrobat Professional. There I found an option to "Reduce File Size." When I clicked on that, after about 30 seconds, the file size had been reduced to 1.9MB and looked as good as before. Guess I don't know all I should about Adobe Acrobat Professional.

Tim, I finally got my map printed and presented to the folks that asked me to do it. I got sidetracked with another project, and just got back on this project a couple of days ago. I really appreciate your time and your patience in walking me through this. your suggestion about creating
a PDf file was terrific. I was able to create a sizable map without loosing any detail. I will definitely hold on to my PDF driver for future map creation. Thanks again!!!!!

Vic

[Tim Osborn]

Glad everything worked out for you. Thanks for the update.

Tim