I'm perplexed. I never can seem to get a photo to look good when I post it to this site. Any gradual color of tonal shifts become banded, and I have to shrink the picture to get it within the size limits. Yet, I see large, great looking pictures all over the site. Any pointers on how to do it right?
--Gary
Assuming that you are using Photoshop...Originally Posted by Gary L. Quay
1. Edit | Convert to Profile... sRGB
2. Image | Image Size... Bicubic Sharper (e.g.)700pixels on long side and 96dpi
(I use Genuine Fractals instead; it seems to give better results)
3. Save | Save for Web & Devices... jpg
Joanna
Joanna,
Tell me more about 96 dpi. Isn't 72 dpi standard?
72 dpi is a myth. To determine what dpi your monitor displays images divide the horizontal screen resoultion with the physical width of your display. That usually doesn't result in 72 dpi. IOW, 72 dpi isn't a standard.
Don Bryant
72 hasn't been the standard for many years. Current monitors are around 100 - 110 or so I've been told by people who are supposed to know that kind of thing.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
I tend to use 96 dpi. If it is a bit fuzzy at the largest size that Flickr will allow, that's OK. I don't want anyone to be able to copy one of my images and print it 8x10.
Thanks again for all of the help getting me online.
--Gary
Could you tell me more about this bicubic sharper please? I've never used it, but it sounds interesting. I've always downsized using bicubic then applied USM to the degree I feel necessary. I like the control this allows me. Does Bicubic Sharper keep the exact same image sharpness/ ghosting/ etc of the pre-downsized image? This sounds like it could save me a step. My workflow is:
Scan at max ppi (non-uprezed), save as tiff
Downsize tiff in PS to true scanner ppi (bicubic)
Edit and sharpen
Save as tiff for printing, using ZIP compression
Run script in PS to convert to 8bit RGB and downsize (bicubic) to web size (400 pixels high), save as uncompressed jpg
Apply sharpening to this jpg to account for softness induced by downsizing (USM 1 pixel, about 30-50%), save again as jpg, upload to web.
Will Bicubic Sharpen improve my results at either of the downsize stages?
Tim
??? Not sure what you mean here. You should, usually, if you intend to print up to the maximum size your scans will allow, then you need to use, providing your scanner supports it as a true optical resolution, 2400 dpi.
This will give you, approximately, 10x enlargement from the tranny/neg and is close to what the film actually resolves.
But, you just scan at 2400ppi, no resizing or scaling is necessary. Once the image is in PS, use the Image | Change Size dialog to change the resolution, without scaling, to 240ppi, as a final working and printing resolution.
You should not sharpen at this stage, unless you are using Genuine Fractals for resizing. Photoshops resizing can really wreck a good image, if you reduce the image size after sharpening.
IF you are using Photoshop, why not save as PSD? It is a lossless compression. Regardless of the file format, I wouldn't use any extra compression.
You don't need to explicitly convert to 8bit, simply convert the profile to sRGB.
As I mentioned in my first reply, I use Genuine Fractals for resizing, for a couple of reasons:
Photoshop can make a mess of a sharpened image when downsizing, if that were my only option, I would not sharpen the image until it had been downsized, I would use Bicubic sharper to resize and then apply sharpening afterwards.
Genuine Fractals seems to work much better on a sharpened image so, in this case, I would do my final sharpening before resizing. During the resizing, GF allows you to adjust the sharpness of the resized image to accomodate any loss during the process.
I usually use the "Save for Web and Devices.." option to create a jpg file, it seems to handle things better.
Regarding compressing the jpg, I tend to compress as much as is needed to create a certain file size.
In my opinion, it would be foolish to sharpen the jpg if you have already sharpened the original image; best to leave all sharpening to after you have resized, unless you use Genuine Fractals.
If you don't have GF, then yes, it should, but be careful not to sharpen before resizing.
This depends on how you are sharpening. I have CS2 and sharpen in 3 stages - 1. source sharpening of scan, 2. content sharpening and 3. output sharpening on layers and masked for edges as per Bruce Frasers recommendations (ref Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop CS2) and implemented in PhotoKit Sharpener. I have absolutely no issues resizing at any stage with CS2.
And in my readings in other fora it appears that the consensus of opinion is that from CS3 onwards Photoshop outperforms Genuine Fractals for resizing.
Ignore dpi unless you want your image to display at a specific measured size on the monitor, e.g. 6 inches on a 120 dpi monitor.
This is irrelevant - TIFFs can be losslessly compressed using LZW or ZIP. Anyhow compression of your master file is just a trade-off between smaller files on disk or slower open/save times depending upon the size of your hard drive and speed of your processor.
Rob
Rob- could you please elaborate a bit on this? I'm not sure what the difference between source sharpening and content sharpening would be. I'm not familiar with these terms, and you're 3rd step is total greek to me. I've been using USM, and have found the Smart Sharpen not to be useful- no user control, it seems. I've recently learned about sharpening in LAB, but haven't tried it yet (mostly because I'm currently working on a bunch of B&W images, and the way I understand it, LAB sharpening seems to be for color). I've also heard of sharpening using a high pass filter, but haven't figured this one out. There seems to be as many ways to sharpen as there are opinions on it.
Thanks,
Tim
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