At this point, we would like to give you a few tips on handling scanned illustrations and photos. These are probably the most common reasons for working with image elements.

In most cases, ink drawings of old illustrations will be available in formats which are far larger than the formats normal scanners can handle. In this case, it is advisable to make a paper print which has already been reduced in size. When scanning the drawing, you should be aiming to achieve the size you want for your printout. If, for example, you are scanning a line-art graphic with a scale of 1:1 and want to print it out again afterwards in the same scale, you should then select a resolution of 300 to 400 dpi. On the other hand, you can reduce the resolution if you are scanning with a larger scale than you actually want to print out later.

Templates are placed on the background layer where they are displayed in the selected background color (see Preferences). Generally speaking, a 150-dpi resolution - and often even less - is adequate for tracing. Earlier versions of Arbortext IsoDraw only displayed templates with 72 dpi.

Particular care should be taken not to choose a resolution which is higher than necessary, as this will slow down the screen redrawing process.

The combined use of raster and vector graphics in the same file is only possible in a small number of formats (e.g. EPS, MIF, Interleaf ASCII and CGM). If you are unable to use these, export the file in TIFF format. This format can be read by most programs.