Any good photo Re-Sizers out there.

[440GTX]

Sorry if this topic has been beat up before
I lose a lot Image Quality and shapness after I re-size for posting pictures.
I have tried Olympus Viewer , Photoshop elements 2 , Pacasa
and various free-bees off the internet.
This image was much sharper and more clear before re-sizeing

Sunday morning Bird Shot

After re-sizeing , I cannot get it to look like the origional.

Thanks in advance
Fred..

[GB1]

Sharpness loss yes, but I doubt you will lose quality in other ways unless the resizing function tries to auto-sharpen, which could do things that you don't want like bump up the contrast too high.

First, need to point out that changing an image size will almost always result in less sharpness. Upsizing (making the image pixel dimensions larger than the original) is a more interesting problem because you are asking the software to increase the number of pixels, hence add information that it doesn't have. To do this, it uses various algorithms to guess. Photoshop's Bicubic Smoother is the choice for this.

Shrinking image pixel dimension also decreases the sharpness but this is much easier to solve. Most of us just manually sharpen the image a bit afterward. Photoshop also has a special algorithm for this called Bicubic Sharpener, but it can over-sharpen your image, making it look weird (terrible, too). For this reason, manual sharpening is usually the way to go.

Almost every app has a sharpening tool - try GIMP also, another freebie. Just watch the over sharpening. This can create a ghosting effect around your photo's objects, too much contrast, and other bizarre stuff.

Post a shot here and I will try it for you, and repost, if you would like.

G

[drg]

Fred,

Are you experiencing difficulties in both up and down sizing of images?

One program that always needs to be mentioned as a dedicated or plug-in is Genuine Fractals. This is really a lot more than just for re-sizing and it works on its own set of unique formulas, but for serious alteration of an image, it is worth exploring.

There are different techniques/algorithms for use by the any of the editing programs to tweak the output. Bilinear versus Bicubic are commonly available different ways of scaling the data when resizing.

Some added sharpening is needed when upscaling (increasing the file size) and may also be needed when reducing the image to a smaller size. However different types of sharpening will generally be needed for the best effect.

Be sure that whatever program you use that you do not change the proportion of the image or it will be distorted and that will cause definite image degradation.

The link you provided looks as if the bird has had a lot of degradation from a lower quality output, and even some Noise Reduction may have intruded too.

GB1 has posted while I was typing this it appears so I'll finish with this 'link' to several posts from Photography Review about this topic!

http://forums.photographyreview.com/...earchid=460136

Just remember, when sharpening as a separate operation do it as you last step in the editing workflow!

[440GTX]

Thanks for the replys GB1 and drg

Are you experiencing difficulties in both up and down sizing of images?

Smaller for forum Posting 800 X 600

Post a shot here and I will try it for you, and repost, if you would like.

G

Thankyou.

If I sharpen the images sometimes get a halo around them.
Or they look bad ( over sharpening )


Here is a shot of the bird reduced to 800 X 600
Quality is better with a small amount of sharpening,but far from the
origional 4.1 mb file from my E-520

[GB1]

Hmm. I sharpened it a bit, then bumped up the contrast just a little, added more saturation, and adjusted the overall lightness. I then used something similar to a magic wand and cleaned up a few small areas. I then sharpened the photo a bit more (hope I didn't overdo it). I think it looks OK, but not having seen the original I can't really judge what resizing did.

One thing that hurts the image imho is the somewhat high contrast of the scene, where the bird's white feathers are pretty much blown out (lack detail) because of the overall contrast with the background and dark feathers on the side. Seems to be an issue with digital, though they're improving this all the time with cameras w/ better dynamic range.

Also, be careful that you don't over compress the JPG or you will get a big time loss of quality that could be easily confused with loss due to sharpening..

GB

[440GTX]

Thankyou very much GB1
You can really see the increase in sharpness . Especially in the eye.
I will just have to practice.
Yes a little too much contrast. With the origional I will decrease the contrast.
Get it looking the best I can. Re-Size and go from there with final processing.
I " THINK " that is the route to go. GO SLOOOW with adjustments/Processing

Fred..

[Janie]

I LOVE Genuine Fractals and use it a lot! The quality of the enlarged images is amazing!