Shrinking pictures to web size?

[Dan_F]

I can take a pretty decent picture, but by time it's resized for the web, it loses much of it's zing. I have Photoshop Elements 2.0, Shoot in TIFF files. I have found that boosting the contrast a bit helps, and I Sharpen one or two clicks, but the Jpegs still lose a lot compared to the originals. Anyone have any tips on this? Camera is a Lumix FZ20, I use a tripod and shoot in manual mode.

Dan

 

[BigShed]

What size are you starting with and what are you reducing it down to?

I start with 2048x1536, then reduce to 800x600 using ACDSee. I then use moderate sharpening and sometimes bump up the contrast a bit.

This results in an image that is perfectly suitable for posting on the web, but perhaps you are looking for better than that.

I have never been a fan of TIFF files and shoot in JPG, my camera doesn't do RAW (only a simply Konica Minolta DiMage Z1)

For pen pictures I use Aperture priority and stop down as far as I can (F8), I use a tripod as well.

 

[toolcrazy]

I use Photoshop Elements 5.0 and don't have the loss problem. But, my camera is 8 megapixels.

 

[karlkuehn]

I use Paint Shop Pro 7 for all my resizing and any color/contrast issues that my camera doesn't take care of. I shoot in JPG with my old Nikon Coolpix 995 in manual/macro mode. My camera is only 3.2 MP, so it's not really size that matters since you're shrinking/compressing anyways. You might try some different photo software. My PSP is pretty old, I've been using Jasc's stuff right up until they sold out to Corel, where the software promptly got crufted up and hard to use. It wasn't broke, but they 'fixed' it anyways. I guard my PSP CD with my life! heh

I imagine you can still get copies of PSP 7 somewhere on the web really cheap. Lemme check:

Here's a downloadable shareware version for $99 http://www.brothersoft.com/paint-shop-pro-64045.html

If you get it, I highly recommend surfing half.com or Amazon for a Sam's 'teach yourself PSP 7 in 24 hours'.

I haven't looked at the new version (12), so I'm not the guy to say one way or the other on it. I've gotten really good at using 7, so I'm a happy guy with the way things are. I don't want to learn a bunch of new hotkeys. heh

 

[Dan_F]

I'm out of luck with PSP 7, as it's Windows Based, and I have a Mac.

I started shooting at 2560, then went down to 1600, thinking that the less shrinkage photoshop had to do, the better the picture might be. I don't know if that holds water or not, whether in camera shrinkage is the same as post production. I might try going smaller still to see if that makes a difference.

I don't have RAW capability either, figured that TIFF would give the best results. I guess I have more experimenting to do. My pics are pretty good, but I would like to take them to the next level. When I see Karl's, for example, I go "how did he do that?"

One other question---In my resizing window, it tells me how many bytes are in the file, as well as download time at typical phone modem download speeds. I generally try to stay within about 40 seconds of download time, which is about 90-120K with a compression factor of 80-90 (higher # = better quality, but longer download times). Do any of you consider such things, or just go with the highest quality settings. I have high speed service myself, but remember how frustrating it was waiting for large pictures to load over the phone modem.

Thanks, and keep the comments flowing.

 

[jcollazo]

Originally posted by Dan_F

I'm out of luck with PSP 7, as it's Windows Based, and I have a Mac.

I started shooting at 2560, then went down to 1600, thinking that the less shrinkage photoshop had to do, the better the picture might be. I don't know if that holds water or not, whether in camera shrinkage is the same as post production. I might try going smaller still to see if that makes a difference.

I'm also a Mac user with Photoshop CS. I find that doing these two things will pretty much get you the smallest sized (in bytes) pictures and the best screen image:

1. Because your saving a copy of the image to be view on a screen, change the image resolution to 72dpi. This is in image size.

2. Save the resulting image with "Save for Web". A medium to high jpg setting should get you a nice clear picture with a sub-100K image, most likely half that.

Here are some pictures in SOYP I posted a couple of weeks ago:
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34457
http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34462

The "smallest" image is the Black w/White Crush Cigar at 68K and the largest is My Personal Pen at 96K. The original .PSD file sizes for those images were 1.2MB and 1.4MB respectively.

 

[karlkuehn]

Originally posted by Dan_F
... When I see Karl's, for example, I go "how did he do that?" ...

You'll be surprised at how hokie my set up is. heh

Had to root around in the archives for a minute to find it, but here's some information on my 'studio' that I posted a while back.

Here's my setup:

It's just a simple wooden frame supporting those translucent acrylic panels you get from Home Depot for light fixtures in drop ceilings, which gives me the option of setting up multiple outside lights.

Currently I'm just using two double 150w halogen worklights shining down from the top and two 60w bulbs for specular highlights. I'll eventually get it all cleaned up, but it's working pretty good for me.

Here's one of the pictures with that background:

For the background colors, I just bought a tablet of cheap, multi-colored construction paper from Walmart for a couple of dollars. The mirror on the bottom reflects the color, and by focusing on the pen, the reflected construction paper blurs out enough to get rid of all the rough texture, leaving only the colored 'floaty' background. I use Paint Shop Pro to 'clone brush' out the dark junction line between the mirror and the construction paper if it ends up in the frame.

Here's SuperDave's thread that my post came from, there's some good info in there, worth reading, including a few pictures of other people's set ups.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31443&whichpage=1

 

[R2]

So tht's how it's done! Bewdy!![:X]

 

[leehljp]

A simple shareware program for this (Mac) is Imagewell.

Get it here: http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html

or here: http://www.versiontracker.com/
Type in "Imagewell" and download.

While I use Photoshop CS personally, I recommend Imagewell to people who are not into that kind of image editing.

If you want a good Mac Photoshop like product that is not PS or Adobe - get Pixelmator from www.pixelmator.com. Several friends like it over Adobe products. A demo is available for download and the cost is $59.00. Not bad for a pretty good full image editing program.