Steps to obtaining and using the map information for the jet stream project in PhotoShop:

 

  1. Open the map data files from our data-page by clicking on the filename.
  2. Right click on the image and <Save As> a gif. to either your hard-drive or a floppy disk. The file will automatically name itself with the Year/Month/Day/Time label for each map.
  3. Open Adobe PhotoShop
  4. Click on <File>
  5. Click on <Open>
  6. Use the Look In: scroll menu to select the location you have saved the map images from our web-page to. Click on the file you wish to work on.
  7. Click on the <Window> button to obtain a drop-menu. From the drop menu you need to make sure that the <Show Tools>, <Show Info>, and Show <History> options have been selected. (The Show History option will allow you to go back and erase any mistakes by dragging the operations shown to the wastebasket.)
  8. Make sure that your cursor is in the Marquee function by clicking on the Small rectangle composed of dashed lines found in the upper portion of the Tools toolbar.
  9. Use the cursor to click and drag a box that extends from northeastern Russia, down to the east of Japan and over to the right side of the map. You can do this by moving the "crosshair" cursor to an area at about 75° N and 150° E, click and drag the dotted square to the right border of the map and down just below the equator.
  10. Click <Image>
  11. Click <Crop>
  12. Look in the lower left corner of your PhotoShop frame. There should be a small white box with a % in it. This is you image size as shown. Highlight whatever number is there at present and change it to 200% by typing over and hitting <enter>.
  13. Move your cursor to the Full-page Square shown at the upper right corner of the image, right next to the "X". Click again. This will give you a full page image
  14. You are now ready to calibrate your image to the longitude and latitude coordinate system. You will use the scroll bars on the image to move to the desired section for work.

 

Calibrating the Image for use in Data collection and Analysis

 

  1. Make sure that your cursor is in the form of a "+" by clicking on the Top left square (Marquee) tool of the PhotoShop tool bar. It will look like a rectangle made up of dotted lines. You will notice that the cursor is a regular arrow pointer off of the PhotoShop image, but changes to a + as soon as it moves over the map image.
  2. Make sure that the Show Info and show Tools options have been selected under the Window drop menu over your image. (Click on <Show Info>. This will give you a coordinate-mapping tool, which assigns coordinates to the cursor.)
  3. Use the Scroll bars at the bottom and right of the image to scan the page for the faint dashed lines, which mark the 90° W, 180° W, 30° N, 60° N latitudes and longitudes. They will appear as very small, faint gray dashes on the image.
  4. Line up the vertical crosshair of the cursor with one of the dashes at the 180° W longitude line. Carefully release the mouse so that it does not move.
  5. Looking at the Info box on your screen, you will find X and Y coordinates for the cursor instead of longitude. Please make a note of the X value for the 180° W line.
  6. Repeat this process for the 90° W line that runs generally through the Gulf Coast from New Orleans area to the Yucatan Peninsula. You will need to record the new X value for this longitude for later use.
  7. Now slide the cursor up the lie until you reach the 30° N latitude line. (Look down around Florida) You will want to line the horizontal bar on your cursor up with one of the gray dashes. Record the "Y" value from the <Info> tool.
  8. Repeat this process for 60° N.
  9. Make sure to save your cropped file--you will need to return to it after entering data on the Data Entry page.

 

You are now ready to go to the Data Entry page.