Resizing your photos

[cJw]

Originally Posted by reefrunner69

10% increments using bicubic smoother, there are better programs for upsizing, like Q-image and Genuine fractals.

Absolutely agreed; bicubic is great for enlarging, but only to an extent. You can't enlarge something tiny to huge and expect it to look 'good'.

The one thing I wanted to add to this, is that photoshop's crop tool has the ability to restrain it's size. Meaning you can crop TO 800x600, 1024x768, whatever size you want, and then you don't have to resize after you edit. Check in the 'tool bar' for the crop tool, along the top of the screen by default for two fields, width and height and enter your preferred crop size.

(This also prevents pixel destruction from resizing if by chance you don't crop it to the best size beforehand.)

I so love photoshop and am so glad I get paid to use it.

[reefrunner69]

The one thing I wanted to add to this, is that photoshop's crop tool has the ability to restrain it's size. Meaning you can crop TO 800x600, 1024x768, whatever size you want, and then you don't have to resize after you edit.

I much prefer using the selection tool and choosing the aspect ratio. If you actually want to crop out some of the photo, you can get the right ratio for the print, but if your going for a smaller print size than your original resolution, you don't have to crop away the majority of the photo.

Example: My camera takes photos in a resolution that will give you an 11.6 X 7.7 print @ 300ppi, straight out of the camera. If I want to print a 5X7, I probably don't want to crop to 5X7 in inches, but would want to crop to the 5:7 ratio, then resize to 5X7.

[cJw]

Another great method. :P

I'm ashamed to say that after literally 10 years of using Photoshop, I only recently found that you could crop to selection... I ALWAYS used the crop tool itself!? :doh:

[Davekyn]

I use paint shop pro and have done so, for many years now. Most photo editing software will use your a lot of your Computer's system resources, so it's very important to select a Version that matches you computers hardware. (Paticulaly for those with older computers)

Reefrunner69 has given an excelent run down on the croppoing, resizing, and file formating of photos. I just wanted to add a little extra info that may or may not be of benifit.

Picture files that are rather large in size (eg-6 to 12MB) are usually uncompressed and are way to big to upload on a website such as this one. However if you like doing lots of photo editing, keep in mind the more uncompressed of file is the quicker it is to edit with all the options within the editing program. For this reason many profesional take thier original snaps in the file format called "TIFF" files. To do this you will need lots of memory in your camera and is probably not practical for most users.

Basically just keep in mind the smaller the file format the less effective your editing will be. I always crop, then edit with filters, effect, ect.. Then resizing to finaly save as: to the required file format..

Store your originals/favourites to external media. It was not till later I found out about file degragation. Every time you open and close the same photo on your computer the pixal quality will eventual suffer. Although it takes a long time many store there originals to CD/DVD for that reason.

It just helps to understand a little about the files and what happens to them. As I said it may or may not help you.