Dino Saga 051016

Dino Saga 051016

Why do many FChat pictures look fuzzy? It’s how you shrink them!

Rob has a picture rule: pictures can be no larger than 640 x 640. This is a fine size for most computers that display pictures at 70 to 100 pixels/inch. It is also the smallest picture that looks good on 4” x 6” paper. This is far smaller than the picture size of most digital cameras so you must convert the picture down. Most stock camera software does a pitiful job. I did a series of operations on a picture of my Dino to illustrate the basic things you want to be able to do once a picture is taken. The sequence is critical for the best final result. The same techniques work anytime you print at any size smaller than the original. On paper or on the Internet. Start the editing at the size your camera loaded into your computer. I started at 2K x 1.5K pixels, an 850 Kb file.

Rotate and crop the picture. Everything will go faster afterward.
Use the Clone tool to eliminate unwanted features and to fill in corners.
Adjust Midtone, then Contrast and finally Brightness.
Shrink to 640 pixels on the longest side. Picture goes out of focus.
Sharpen the picture to bring back the “snap.”
NOW it will look as good as it did in the viewfinder; and we will enjoy it more when you post it.

If you do not have software that can do all of the above, you will post fuzzy, bland “snapshots.” Not all software that says it can do everything, can. I use a Fuji S5000 camera and the stock FinePix software handled files fine, printed fine but could not do much editing. They upgraded the software and added shrink. Lots of bugs and weird artifacts got added during shrinking. I threw away the upgrade. Microsoft products are a mixed bag. Photoshop by Adobe does most everything and accepts add-ons for things it can’t. It costs a fortune and takes a lot of learning. Photoshop Elements is affordable, limited but still difficult. PhotoStudio by ArcSoft has been my editor of choice since I saw the first version at Comdex in the early 90’s. Powerful and easy to learn. Has gotten better year by year. ArcSoft wholesales software to many camera manufacturers. Sony, Nikon and HP are big names who have included ArcSoft products with their cameras. Most of these “freebies” are small formatting programs; Albums, cards, posters, etc. Sometimes the full PhotoStudio Editor is included. You seldom find ArcSoft products in retail stores but Circuit City has PhotoStudio Impressions for $30. It has the critical resize and sharpen capabilities but other features are of limited technical use. The full PhotoStudio runs anywhere from $40 to $80 depending on where you buy it. Buy it. Just for the editing, size manipulation and sharpening features. With a little practice, humans can learn to use it in their lifetime.

Generating the following pictures was tricky since what you see is 640 x 480 even though I did some of the work at full camera resolution. I added the final triple view so you could see what I saw during editing. These are blow-ups of the wind wing where you can see the individual pixels. Note how shrinking blurred everything and how sharpening popped it back into focus. You vary the amount of sharpening by the reduction that was made. In this case reduction was about 3 to 1 and medium sharpening was right. More reduction, more sharpening needed.

Some programs offer various compression ratios when saving pictures in .jpg format. You will find that 640 x 480 sharpened pictures do not get smaller until you get to 10% file size where the distortion is unbearable. Save these small files at full resolution and you will have something in the 90Kb to 170Kb range. Rob accepts them just fine.

Remember, make a copy of the high res edited original. Reduce the copy to the resolution the viewer will see or the printer will print. Sharpen, save and use it. When you want a different size, go back to the edited original and repeat the process. It does take practice and it does take time. But your pictures will do the cars justice.

You can get there from here.

John
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I use MGI Photosuite III for just about everything you mention except for the cloning. It quickly reduces 5 meg.jpg shots straight from my camera down to 640 on the long side and stays in focus doing it. I am puzzled why yours get blurry when compressed.
The program still has color, light, contrast, rotate, blemish removal, crop and sharpness among many others and is very quick compared to the slowness of Photoshop.

 

Spasso,

The reason for this weeks thread was my reading of the Oct. F-Chat Newsletter. Rob and others posted a slew of pictures covering the Crescent Classic Ferrari Tour of the Ozarks in September. Most of the pictures were fuzzy. If our Grand Guru has problems, I thought that he and a few others might want to do better. I captured a couple of the posted pictures, sharpened them and posted them at the end of the tour coverage. Take a look.

There is no good reason why programmers can't write file reduction programs that optimize resolution. Printer manufacturers do it all the time. Most low end programs simply average an area and let it go at that. Take a look at what Microsoft Word does to a picture when you try to adjust size.

I am a semi-pro technical photographer and have fun taking lots of pics and then editing a select few for a specific use. I have little use for Albums or Slide Shows and removing Red Eye is far down the list. I do correct perspective distortion, rotate just a touch, etc. The final result will print at 100-150 pixels per inch. This is typical magazine quality and there is no reason why Internet pics should not hold to the same quality standards. Any one who spends time on E-Bay knows how bad photos can be. F-Chat is better but why not be the best.

I'll take a look at PhotoSuite III. Thanks for the tip.

John

 

Ah, thanks for the explanation John,
My program came with my old computer and I liked it so much I put it on my new one. MGI Photosuite III Platinum.

It has just about everything except paint features which I use Microsoft Paint or Photoshop for.

The best part about Photosuite is it is basic and quick. I have shot as many as 90 shots in a day and have edited or deleted all in less than 90 minutes on a good day. However, the editing did NOT include color correction, just the following if/as required, rotate, crop, brightness, contrast, sharpen, soften, red eye, blemishes and finally resizing for posting to Fchat. Depending on shooting conditions it can take quite a while to save a shot as you well know. Most of mine you can find in the Northwest section.

BTW, LOVE your Dino!

Note; My dad used to have a 1964 Alfa Spider and Giulietta
DJ

 

John,

I'm in Ventura, how come we haven't got together yet???

Rob