Jagged edges when resized?

[skiprat]

Hi All, please could someone tell me how to overcome the jagged edge around items that appears when I resize my pics on my PC. Whether I use the camera software or Microsoft Photo Editor, I can get a pretty sharp image only when viewed at 100%. When I shrink them in either program they more often than not have a jagged edge and even when there isn't a jagged edge, then the final pic is pretty crummy.
The camera I use is a Kodak DX6490.
A friend sent me PIXresizer, will this do the trick or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks in advance

 

[gketell]

It could be one of many things.

If you resize to a larger photo you are SoL without some cool/expensive software.

When resizing down some software will immediately zoom in to make it so you can see the resulting image well and that has the visual affect the same as resizing to larger. You would need to "zoom to 100%" to see what it really looks like.

If you are resizing down and it is still jaggy at 100% then you can try making sure you resize down in multiples of two. Go from 1000 pixels to 800 pixels, not 799 pixels. Or go to "normal" sizes like 640x480, 800x600, etc. If you aren't taking out "even numbers of pixels" then the software has to do something odd with the one extra row/column and you get jaggies.

There was actually a good article about resizing in one of the photography magazines I read. I'll try to find it for you.

GK

 

[skiprat]

Thanks Greg. What I have been doing is cropping the pic to exclude some background while still in the camera software. Sometimes I try to enhance the image. Then I open it with Microsoft Photo Editor. I then resize it to the size it has popped up on the screen with. Normally this is about 25%. If I'm lucky then it doesn't have the jagged edge. If it does, then I view it at 100% ( which won't fit on the screen ) and it looks great, just too big[]

 

[gketell]

Ok, so you are resizing your VIEW of the picture, not the picture itself. For posting you want to resize the actual picture.

I use Adobe and don't have windows so can't help you with M$ Photo Editor. In Adobe Photoshop there is View:Zoom In, View:Zoom out, View:Zoom %. Those change the view size. Then there is Image:resize image which actually modifies the image.

Ahh google to the rescue.
Resize an Image - you can resize an image BUT REMEMBER, if you have a small image and you want to resize larger, the image may become pixelated or distorted because the resolution is too low to allow for resize. It's much better to have a large image that you resize smaller than to try to make a small image larger.

1. Open Microsoft Photo Editor
2. From the File menu (or open icon), choose Open. Navigate to where you have your photos or images stored. Click on the one you want to open.
3. From the Image menu, choose Resize
1. You can enter width & height numbers or you can use percentages to resize. You can also select which unit of measurement to use - inches, centimeters or pixels.
2. Do NOT check Allow distortion unless that is what you want. If you leave it blank, you can type in a number in the width and have it auto calculate what the height should be without distoring the image.

For web posting choosing 640x480 pixels fit nicely onto a screen within a web browser so select a width of 640 pixels and let it calculate the height. After you do this you SHOULD be able to view the picture at 100% and have it fit on the screen.

GK

 

[gerryr]

Stephen,
What version of Windows are you running? If you use XP, there is a picture resizer in the XP Power Toys add-in that you can get from Microsoft. It's free and is super-easy to use. Once installed, you just right-click on the file and then select "Resize Picture". It gives you four, IIRC, size options, one of which is 640x480. Takes only a couple of seconds to do it.

 

[toolcrazy]

This isn't uncommon with a lot of the lower end picture software. Try out Corel Paint shop Pro XI. The problem with a lot of the basic image software is they take too much out of the pic. They are more worried about size of the image and not quality.

 

[Blind_Squirrel]

http://www.picasa-2007.net/download.php?lang=US

 

[skiprat]

Thanks All

 

[rd_ab_penman]

I used Image Resizer Powertoy for Windows XP and very user friendly. I use Medium size for posting here and small for email photos. Oh yay and it's FREE!!!