Re-sizing For Forums

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Red Squirrel

Have just skipped through Ron Bigelow's Sharpening parts 1 & 2. I understand the need for sharpening and will digest this later.

if you really want the lowdown on sharpening, the late-great Bruce Fraser wrote a 272 page book just on the subject of sharpening in PS CS2. I can recommend it (and his other books in the 'Real World' series). The techniques he developed are incorporated in Pixelgenius's 'Photokit Sharpener', which I use. It's excellent but expensive. You can download it and use it free for 14 days, but unless you're prepared to pay for it, I'd advise against doing this - once you've tried it you won't want to give it up!

Jim

[PMG]

Originally Posted by Red Squirrel

Thank you bripriuk. I don't have a problem with the sharpness from the camera. It's when I resize to put them on WAB or a social forum, they lose some crispness.

Yes resizing does soften a crisp image My tactic is to sharpen it at the full size - the image I am saving at a good resolution to print from or just look closer at, but once I have compressed (sized it down) for wab the very last thing I do is add just one more Sharpen - this nearly always brings the smaller image back to the sharpness of the larger one!

Pauline

[Red Squirrel]

That sounds an interesting book Jim. will have a look at it.

Thanks for the info Pauline. Will try that and hopefully post much better pictures on here.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Red Squirrel

That sounds an interesting book Jim. will have a look at it.

It can be got quite cheaply second-hand.

All Bruce Fraser's 'Real World' books are very well and clearly written. He was a World authority on colour management, and the 'inventor' of the colour profiling system we use in our PP applications.

Jim

[Red Squirrel]

I've just resized this picture. The first one I didn't sharpen after resizing down.

The second one I resized down and sharpened but had to resize again as the file was too big For WAB. You can see a slight improvement but they still aren't as good as the original showing on my computer.

Any comments please before you all get cheesed off with me?

[Geoff F]

Are you saying that the act of resizing down is in fact the 'compression' that you talk about?

No.

Resizing is just that. You do discard some pixels which is what can make a resized image soft.

When saving as a Jpeg you should be offered a choice of 'compression' amounts. More 'compressed' files are a lot smaller but some details will be lost.

This is where a bit of compromise can occur. Personally, I would usually prefer less pixels (smaller image size) than use too much Jpeg compression. I don't like going 'below' (which means more compression) 80% Jpeg. This means 20% loss, or around value 10, depending on your software system.

And with regard to those two excellent photos. Can I be difficult and say that I actually prefer the first one.

When first viewed in the Gallery they both look a bit soft, but when I click again on the image to switch to the full sized versions I think that the second one seems to be oversharpened, particularly the legs.

I did previously mention clicking on the Gallery photos to switch to the full sized images. The first images which appear are a reduced 'semi thumbnail' which often appears a little soft.

[Red Squirrel]

Thanks for that Geoff. Much appreciated. Back to the drawing board for me.

I see exactly what you mean about the two photos above when enlarged. Agree that the second one looks over sharpened and that the first one looks better.

It seems to me that taking the picture is the easy bit. It's the getting it on to the forum that's the hard bit. If you want it to look half decent anyway.

[PMG]

What stunning sparrowhawk shots - I wouldn't be disappointed with either

[Red Squirrel]

Thank you Pauline but I find it frustrating because they are better on my screen beforeI put them on here.

I'll get this sorted if it kills me.