Techniques for resizing/photoshopping pics?


Status
Not open for further replies.

TroyP

New Member
Dec 23, 2008
1,822
0
0
Hi CS'ers,

What is the best method for resizing and touching up hi-res pics?
I notice that some of my pics look good at the original 12 megapixel size, but after resizing, touching up, and re-saving as jpg, they don't look so great.

Here's what I do:

1. I take pics at 4288x2848 (Nikon D90).
2. In Photoshop, Adjust: Auto levels, Auto contrast, Auto color
3. Resize at 1024x680
4. Save as jpg max compression (quality 12).
5. Upload to Flickr

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Any tips?
 

do a mild sharpening after resizing, there is also no need to save it at quality 12, in most cases 9 to 11 would do fine, this will save you significant amount of space. also make sure you convert the colorspace to sRGB
 

do a mild sharpening after resizing, there is also no need to save it at quality 12, in most cases 9 to 11 would do fine, this will save you significant amount of space. also make sure you convert the colorspace to sRGB

So I select Adobe RGB on my camera, then when saving in PS I check the "Color: ICC Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1" box in the "save as" options?

Do you "save as" in jpg format?
Or do you "save for web & devices"?
 

So I select Adobe RGB on my camera, then when saving in PS I check the "Color: ICC Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1" box in the "save as" options?

Do you "save as" in jpg format?
Or do you "save for web & devices"?
yes, as long as the sRGB box is checked, its fine, else just do a conversion (not required if you use "save as web")

both "save as" and "save for web & devices" will work, but the latter will discard the exif data thus rendering a smaller file size.
 

Look up sharpening techniques.

Note that each time you resize a picture, the quality drops slightly, thus a USM would help.
 

Hi CS'ers,
Here's what I do:

1. I take pics at 4288x2848 (Nikon D90).
2. In Photoshop, Adjust: Auto levels, Auto contrast, Auto color
3. Resize at 1024x680
4. Save as jpg max compression (quality 12).
5. Upload to Flickr

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Any tips?

My suggestion is that you skip #2. Might work well for some photos, but instant killer for the others. Learn how to do it manually. Otherwise, do it on a separate layer and adjust the opacity to reduce the effects if necessary. And the others are right. Quality 12 not necessary for web viewing. If using save for web, 70 or 80 is good enough in most cases.
 

becos most of the web browser are only sRGB managed.

Then what's the diff between doing these 2?

1. Take photo with Adobe RGB set on the camera. Save as sRGB in Photoshop
2. Take photo with sRGB set on the camera. Save as sRGB in Photoshop
 

do a mild sharpening after resizing, there is also no need to save it at quality 12, in most cases 9 to 11 would do fine, this will save you significant amount of space. also make sure you convert the colorspace to sRGB

The sharpening worked wonders, thanks :D

I end up having to save multiple copies of my files though.
Resize original to 1024 x 1024 (max viewable res), sharpen, upload to flickr.
Resize original to 604 x 604 (max viewable res), sharpen, upload to Facebook.
 

Why don't you take photos set at sRGB on your camera directly? I've read that Adobe RGB colors are slightly duller.

And apologies to TS but I'm gonna ask a question here as well:

ExplorerZ: you mean if I choose Save As after editing, EXIF data will still be intact, except for the pixel size? I've been using Save For Web all these while and it's frustrating to see all EXIF data erased and I thought there was no way around it. Haha!
 

Save For Web will strip away the EXIF data,

use "save as", the EXIF data will be intact, however, filesize is slightly bigger.
 

1. I take pics at 4288x2848 (Nikon D90).
2. In Photoshop, Adjust: Auto levels, Auto contrast, Auto color
3. Resize at 1024x680
4. Save as jpg max compression (quality 12).
5. Upload to Flickr

1. fine
2. learn how to do customised photoshoppery, if not you are paying a lot of money for something that you can do with picasa


for 3,4,5, there is a technique that retains sharpness better than just plain resizing. if your end size is 1024x680, resize to 2048x1360, filter --> sharpen --> sharpen TWICE if your unsharp mask was not aggressive, ONCE if it was..

then resize to 1024.

you can save this as an action if you want to do this faster.
 

1. fine
2. learn how to do customised photoshoppery, if not you are paying a lot of money for something that you can do with picasa


for 3,4,5, there is a technique that retains sharpness better than just plain resizing. if your end size is 1024x680, resize to 2048x1360, filter --> sharpen --> sharpen TWICE if your unsharp mask was not aggressive, ONCE if it was..

then resize to 1024.

you can save this as an action if you want to do this faster.

So are you saying its best to resize to the largest multiple of the size I wish to resize to?
4288x2848 is my image size. Maybe I should crop it to 4096x2848, sharpen once or twice, then resize to 1024x712. Does that sound good?
 

So are you saying its best to resize to the largest multiple of the size I wish to resize to?
4288x2848 is my image size. Maybe I should crop it to 4096x2848, sharpen once or twice, then resize to 1024x712. Does that sound good?

no

it is best to resize to DOUBLE the final size. :)

note that the intermediate result might look horrible, the final result is what matters. if it looks oversharpened, backtrack and sharpen ONCE only.
 

Hi CS'ers,

What is the best method for resizing and touching up hi-res pics?
I notice that some of my pics look good at the original 12 megapixel size, but after resizing, touching up, and re-saving as jpg, they don't look so great.

Here's what I do:

1. I take pics at 4288x2848 (Nikon D90).
2. In Photoshop, Adjust: Auto levels, Auto contrast, Auto color
3. Resize at 1024x680
4. Save as jpg max compression (quality 12).
5. Upload to Flickr

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Any tips?

About #2: These auto adjustments will work OK in some cases, but Photoshop has such sophisticated color tools, you can almost always get better results making custom adjustments. Example from your website (some very nice images there!):

grasshopperjx1.jpg


About #4: Saving at level 12 is overkill, especially for the web. Level 10 (and often lower) will preserve image quality just fine.
 

About #2: These auto adjustments will work OK in some cases, but Photoshop has such sophisticated color tools, you can almost always get better results making custom adjustments. Example from your website (some very nice images there!):

grasshopperjx1.jpg


About #4: Saving at level 12 is overkill, especially for the web. Level 10 (and often lower) will preserve image quality just fine.

Thanks :)
I only just started touching up my pics on flickr (they were originally uploaded with no touch-ups).
I didn't touch up and upload the grasshopper yet. BTW the background is a purple chair, I did notice that Photoshop turns it blue with auto-color adjustment.

I take pics in RAW format now, and I have installed the RAW Photoshop plugin (for CS3).
I now do most of my modifications from the RAW plugin before resizing/sharpening in Photoshop.
 

:thumbsup:
 

Thanks :)
I only just started touching up my pics on flickr (they were originally uploaded with no touch-ups).
I didn't touch up and upload the grasshopper yet. BTW the background is a purple chair, I did notice that Photoshop turns it blue with auto-color adjustment.

I take pics in RAW format now, and I have installed the RAW Photoshop plugin (for CS3).
I now do most of my modifications from the RAW plugin before resizing/sharpening in Photoshop.

RAW is good. it allows me to rescue most pictures and allow a great deal of recovery to be done....

now i am progressing to not only rescue and recover but also to enhance it. :)

however, i didn't realise that resizing affects sharpness? :dunno: or does it apply only for resizing using a jpg and not for resizing and saving as a jpg from RAW? :think:
 

Status
Not open for further replies.