Re: [hylafax-users] Received fax conversion question

[Lee Howard <faxguy@deanox.com>]

>I've been using HylaFAX for a month or so to receive faxes and, once I 
>have them, convert them to images, not ps or other files.

TIFF *is* an image file format.  So is PostScript.

>  Currently, I 
>use fax2ps to avoid the resolution difference, then ImageMagick's convert 
>utility to change from a PostScript file to a jpg or gif, etc.  It works 
>pretty well, but the image quality suffers a lot during the process and 

Not surprising.  JPG is a lossful image format.  As for GIF, I don't
imagine that many programmers care to deal with it much any more as Unisys
is enforcing a silly patent on the compression.  As for the TIFF -> PS
conversion, there's really not much occuring there technically, so you
should check the images after only *that* conversion.  If they appear fine,
then you know that Ghostscript is not to blame.  If they are distorted,
then you should talk to the folks at Ghostscript and perhaps try using
tiff2ps instead.

>I'm looking for a better way to go directly from tif to jpg (say).  IM 

Is there a good way?  I doubt it.  JPG really isn't intended for images of
the kind that are faxes (black on white).

>doesn't seem to respect the resolution change unless you manually set it, 
>and even then the quality seems to have degraded again.  Am I expecting 
>too much here?

Too much?  No, but I believe your direction to be misguided.

>Has anyone been able to convert from the received tif to 
>a readable, clear jpg or gif?

I've done it before, but the end-result image was rather large.  The
"ghosting" that JPGs invoke will cause the reader increased eye-strain.  In
my opinion, you should just use a TIFF viewer, but if not that, then
PostScript or PDF aren't bad choices for readability, but in my experience
the ps2pdf conversion wrecks havoc on imbedded images (the entire fax).

Lee.




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