Less mega pixels

[bfairs]

Hi
ihave been talking to so people about this site and how good it is and trying to down size my photo's to mpost on here.
I was told to just reduce the MP setting on my camara.
Can anyone tell me if this would work.
the lowest setting is 0.3mp 640x480 or is this to low for a good pic to post

[zan]

But what happens if you take a brilliant photo with your camera, but then find you only have a tiny file and can only get a tiny print from it?

There are loads of ways to resize a file after you've taken it using various image editors. One good free one is called GIMP if you don't have anything you prefer already, and will let you scale an image to any size you like. Personally, I would always shoot in the highest possible resolution and resize later if need be. You can make images smaller really easily, but you'll struggle to scale a small one up successfully. Just my 2p!

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by bfairs

Hi
ihave been talking to so people about this site and how good it is and trying to down size my photo's to mpost on here.
I was told to just reduce the MP setting on my camara.
Can anyone tell me if this would work.
the lowest setting is 0.3mp 640x480 or is this to low for a good pic to post

Hi bfairs, and welcome to WAB.

To be honest, that would be the worst advice you could have been given!

You would end up with very small original files for your photos that would be nigh-on useless for enlarging or printing.

Suppose, for example, you happened to take a fantastic shot that would be an absolute world beater. Wouldn't you then be very annoyed with yourself if you could only make a 2 inch print before the picture quality started noticably deteriorating?

I would strongly suggest that you set your camera's quality settings to the highest possible, and then use some form of post camera image processing software to downsize those that you wish to upload to WAB.

Resizing an image takes only a matter of seconds, and is a far far better way to do things than making a very small image in the first place.

Please note that you should always copy your image before, or use "save as" when resizing, so that you don't accidentally lose the original large version.

If you are not sure how to go about doing this sort of thing, by all means ask on WAB - we're a friendly bunch, and will do all we can to sort out any difficulties that you may encounter.

Regards,
Mike.

EDIT - Zan beat me to it! (Great minds ).

[bfairs]

Thanks for some great advice.
Ithought i would ask as i did not wont to take loads of pics and find they are no good as you now you only get one take on some pic's when dealing with
wildlife.
thanks again this site is so brill.

[zan]

Great minds indeed!

No problem at all bfairs, hope you get that world-beating shot now!

[Za]

Another good, free , easy to use resizing program is fotosizer.com , I always recommend it, so simple, even I can use it

Za

[shenk1]

My personal recommendation for simply re-sizing is photofiltre (google it -its free).
Easy to use and a few simple photo fixes too.
Resize to 1000 pix-ish on longest side.

shenk1

PS always take at max size as when you resize smaller it often sharpens any out of focus areas up as it concentrates the picture.

[Geoff F]

I can see the thinking here.

Set your camera adjustments for a sharp bright well saturated image and upload direct without any further processing.

And if you take a perfect photo, which will never be printed at A4, I suppose it would work. Just think of the time saved!

A lot, however, depends on the type of camera and what you expect in terms of picture quality.

Like most people who have responded to this post, I am looking for something better from my photos. But admittedly, not everybody wants to spend these long summer evenings sitting in front of a computer doing micro adjustments in order to produce a perfect image.

If however, you want decent photos which will stand the passage of time I do suggest going down the editing first route. And if you want to upload really good sharp images a little bit of thought is necessary.

This site will give some of the technical information Image Resizing for the Web and Email but they are really talking about how the professionals do it.

And what do I do? Normally shoot RAW, edit with one of the cheaper programmes and save a copy on my hard drive. When resizing for the web, I use the best quality setting and adjust my image size and resolution to suit. Personally, I think some of the auto resizing programmes don't give you the best quality, but they are a lot quicker.

After resizing, your photo often benefits from a little sharpening before e mailing.

[bfairs]

Thanks for everyones help i have downloaded gimp and have started copying
and resizeing about 100 plus pic's so hope to be posting soon
thanks again.
brian

[Paul mabbott]

As mentioned there are lots of manipulators which are very good and often free (I use Irfanview which provides everything I need for photgo-manipulation).

Lot of good advice here but what hasn't been stressed is that whatever you do (unless you're actually working on RAW files) then crop first and do any other manipulations before saving - you lose detail on every save.

I agree that you should take the highest resolution (highest Mpixel setting) option and then trim it down afterwards (keeping the original for backup). The only disadvantage with this would be if you had small memory storage - in which case, treat yourself to a bigger card! Looking forward to seeing some pics