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Daphne Dec 17, 2005

When I resize an image it gets all grainy. See:

The original photo... which is too big to post, has a nice soft look to it.

I'm setting dpi to 72. I've tried resizing THEN editing the picture. And I've tried editing the picture THEN resizing. Neither seems to make a difference.

What am I doing wrong?

Can someone explain it in BLONDE terms, please. (I was blonde as a kid and the roots are still in there though my hair has gotten a bit darker. I'm not meaning to offend anyone!)

Thank you for any help!!!!!

Helena Dec 17, 2005

Hi Daphne,

You could try decreasing the size in increments, that might help (especially if your original is big). Decrease by 50%, then sharpen, decrease again.... maybe just once or twice. I used to make graphics for a web competition and found that I lost a lot of detail in PSP unless I used this method  :).

Other suggestions: PSP has various ways of reducing noise on photos such as 'jpeg artifact removal'. You should be able to find them in the 'effects' menu, but it depends what version you have. Also, did you lighten or sharpen the image before resizing? If you did, try doing the adjustments afterwards instead and see if it makes any difference.

Hope this helps!

Shelli Retired Help Advisor, Banner SponsorDec 17, 2005

Or, send it to Shelli and let her do it in PhotoShop for you, and compare the results.  Maybe it's time for a new graphics/photo program...?  I hear sleighbells, and heard Santa's more than willing to fork over the $50-90 for Elements in most cases... if you've been good this year.

Laughing here... me, Adobe's unpaid salesperson.

gotobedbears Dec 17, 2005

Throw in the towel Daph - chuck PSP in the bin, it's nothing but a pain in the butt from start to finish. Life is toooooo short for mucking about with PSP, it drives me nuts!
            :twisted:
Must have been devised by a man as it is soooo needlessly convoluted and tricksy - too many features that non-professional photographers don't need and because it contains so many features it takes you a lifetime to learn - what a waste of a life! - that's what i say luv.

Shelli - i know you is a wiz with this but blimey! how long did it take you to learn to use it? Did you have to lock yourself in a darkened room for like, 6 months living only on bread and water with no TV and no human contact?????

I HATE Photoshop full stop - it's s.t.u.p.i.d.o.

I find it quicker to use the basic ACDSee thingy that is on my computer for my pics - no problems resizing without loss of quality - maybe fiddle around with your pics in PSP and then do the resizing using another program Daph?

Ah Well - what do i know about anything anyway, but i still hate photoshop 

Penny 

Deb Dec 17, 2005

... fork over the $50-90 for Elements in most cases... if you've been good this year.

Laughing here... me, Adobe's unpaid salesperson.

$50-$90?  I thought Adobe Photoshop was about $700.  What's Elements?  Condensed version?

Helena Dec 17, 2005

LOL Penny! We'll have to agree to disagree on this one! I have PSP version 7 which I love - maybe it's the later versions that have you so bothered? Jasc, the software company that made it, were merged (?) with Coral after the release and the newer versions get less favourable reviews.

I think it's what you get used to. I've used PSP for endless graphics and effects and found it powerful and fairly easy....especially if you follow  tutorials (tho I've never been able to get my head around the 'masks' feature - what's that all about????).

Now when I was working I had to learn to use Excel spreadsheets and it took me two or three days of ploughing through the manual before I could even enter my first numbers! Gawd, that and Powerpoint were nightmares. I'm glad those days are over!!!

:hug:

Shelli Retired Help Advisor, Banner SponsorDec 17, 2005

Deb, click this for the full on, current, professional stuff at Adobe.  It's the $600+ stuff, and much newer than what I have.

http://store.adobe.com/store/products/m … tPhotoshop

Then, click below for info on very high powered, but smaller, less "professional," programs.

I only have PhotoShop because I got it as a gift.  Were I to buy it myself, I'd get Elements; whatever the current version is.

http://store.adobe.com/store/products/m … lementsWin

Deb Dec 17, 2005

Shelli ~

You're up pretty dang early (or up pretty dang late) ... one of the two.  I couldn't sleep.  Up soooo early.  Thanks for the links.

Pipa Dec 17, 2005

PSP is a great programme if you know the tools to use. I've used it for years and find it GREAT, resizing your photograph from the original shouldn't lose any of the quality unless you are making it about 100x100 pixels big for example. the smaller the image the more you lose the crispness of the photo !

open the original photograph. don't make any changes to it except you might want to crop out any excess background you don't want first.. goto  IMAGE / RESIZE

and then select  either
pixel size - and type in the amount of pixels wide you want it.. 300 or 400 or 500 perhaps depending on how big you want the pic

or select
Percentage of original and type in say 50 or however big you want it

press ok.. then select

EDIt..COPY..
EDIT..PASTE AS NEW IMAGE

it shouldn't alter the quality of the pic really.. and if you want the pic softer you can use the soften tool aswell.. 

sewzanne Dec 17, 2005

Penny, your posts always give me a giggle    . You should all do what I did: have a child, wait 18 years til she's home on her semester break and say " Could you please post some pictures on a chat board for me- even though you've only been home for like, an hour?" It worked for me!    Oh, by the way she has Photoshop, but she's an illustration major and uses it ALL the time. She draws on the computer a lot!
Suzanne

Shelli Retired Help Advisor, Banner SponsorDec 17, 2005

Shelli ~ You're up pretty dang early (or up pretty dang late) ... one of the two.

Well, depends on how you look at it, I guess!  I was so wound up from the incredibly busy and exhausting week I had -- in which I spent too much time here, might I add, for my mental health -- that, after driving round trip to Vacaville (on the road from 7pm to midnight), I was too amped up on coffee and stress and the wind-down of it all to sleep.  So I've been sitting here Googling all sorts of dorky things.  Getting sleepy now, though.  It's 5:30a.m.  Yeesh...

fredbear Dec 17, 2005

humf I have spent hours trying to get pictures right and slowly learning a few things. If I was to purchase a program to do the right thing, what would you suggest, remember it is for someone who knows what a needle and thread is for, and  thinks that a pixel is a pixie's boyfriend.
At the moment I use the programs that came with my Sony digital camera.

Lynette

bearlyart Dec 17, 2005

A couple of thoughts:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using Paint Shop Pro.

If your original image is a JPG and you are doing numerous steps of image manipulation, keep in mind that EACH time you change a JPG image it loses some of the image's information and therefore decreases image quality.  JPG is considered a lossy file type for this reason. 

If at any point you UPsized your image (went from a smaller to a larger image), image quality would become lousy.

I have a slightly older version of PSP and if there's some sort of specialized tool you're using to achieve that border effect, I don't have it.  I might be suspicious of it, as it seems to be giving you a pixelated border effect, I would wonder if it was doing some pixelating within the image itself.  Can you resize the image without the border effect and maintain image quality?

Hope this helps,
Kelly

Daphne Dec 17, 2005

Kelly,
I hadn't thought about it being the border but I bet you are right! As this doesn't happen all the time but I hadn't researched into when it does or doesn't. I do believe you are a genius! Thank you!

I mentioned Elements to hubby as he went out the door to go Christmas shopping this morning. He looked at me, took of his coat, went to his office and came back with an older but free version of ELEMENTS! It came with the camera he got! It's version 2... I believe they're up to #4 now but I'll at least play around with this one.

He's also informed me that he got the trial for Photoshop! So, I have a lot of playing to do after christmas!

I like PSP.... but there are a lot of things it can do that I'll never learn. I've often told hubby that an engineer designed it as nothing is simply, cut and dry. Everything take 10 steps to accomplish then you still have to go back and tweek some more. But I've taken the time to learn a bit and dread starting from scratch with a new program.

Thanks for all of your suggestions and input!! It's all very helpful and I really appreciate it!

Hugs,
Daphne

Helena Dec 17, 2005

Let us know how you get on Daphne!  :)

PS Just noticed your change in avatar --- gooorgeous bear!!!