Image size?

I set my ist D on the best JPeg mode, and now I am finding it impossible to resize them small enough to use as an avatar and probably an email attachment as well. Do you really have to know in advance and set the camera in order to take photos to use as email attachments or is there a good way to resize them after the fact? I tried in Adobe and it just would not resize enough to work. I guess it needs more compression?

Ava,

Photoshop can resize your image to any size, even a single pixel square Image size and compression are two completely different factors. You didn't say which version of Photoshop you are using, but here's the general idea...

Load your image in Photoshop. Select "Image", "Image Size" and change the dimensions to pixels. Set the width to, say, 100. Click OK.
(You may need to use the Zoom tool, right click the image, and select "Actual Pixels" to see the result proper.)

Having done this you can add some unsharp mask to sharpen it up a bit - Filter, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask..., select 100%, Radius 0.7, Threshold 2 and click OK.

I think it might be worth your while investing in one the Adobe Classroom books on Photoshop (resizing the image is really basic stuff).

Hope that helps,
Matt

Yes. I had resized the image as you had mentioned. The problem is that my image needed to be 70 X 70 pixels and 6000 bytes or smaller. Even when I resized it to 2 x 2 pixels it was still over 6000 bytes and so the program rejected the use of the picture as an avatar. Does that make sense? My scanned picture said it was 4.48 KB at 63 X 65 pixels, but my tiny microscopic digital one still said it was 61 KB! This is the part that I don't understand....

Ahhh, now I understand

When you save a JPG, there are two issues: 1) size, 2) compression.
Obviously you have no choice about the size - that's 70x70 pixels.
However, when you save as JPG, there's a quality setting - the higher the number, the larger the file and the fewer "artifacts". So, you need to choose "Baseline standard", and choose a low number (like 4 or 5). As you go for a lower number, the file size decreases, but the image goes a bit "dish watery" (for want of a better expression) - especially when there are areas of high contrast.

You see, a very compressed, small JPG may actually be very large in size, and vice-versa. I have images that are 60 mega bytes in memory that only take up 200k on disk (because they have been compressed highly).

To make life much easier, there is the "Save for Web" option in Photoshop. There you can choose JPG, and choose from default compression options (or choose default ones). Very helpfully, PS shows the preview on the right hand side (so you can see the artifacts), and also the size in bytes That way you can fine-tune the image output, and is definitely the way to get beautiful web images.

Hope that makes some sense!
(These subjects are covered very well in the Adobe Classroom books )

Perhaps if you let me know your PS version, I can point you in the direction of some online tutorials or books...
Matt

Well thanks...I can go to adobe and try to figure out your explaination. I have version 6.0 right now if you know about some books that are "easy" to understand.....

Hi Ava!

Well, this might help:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0201710161/qid=1072740682//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i0_xgl14/104-0406714-4156767?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

(Adobe Classroom in a Book by the Adobe Creative Team)

We recently upgraded from PS7 to Adobe Creative Suite CS, and I had to learn InDesign and Illustrator in a very short time for some graphic and brochure work (though I'd used other inferior page layout and vector graphics packages before). Bought the two books and they were exceptionally helpful

Here are some very good online tutorials, of varying degrees of complexity:
http://www.arraich.com/ps_intro.htm (good beginners guide and has Photoshop Elements too)
http://www.russellbrown.com/

If you are tight on funds you might also consider Photoshop Elements 2.0 - it is a very worthy package built around the PS7 engine. Then the upgrade prices from PS6 to PS-CS are very reasonable now - it seems Adobe have got some good deals at the moment. There was little that I couldn't do with PSE2 (plus a few free plugins). PSE is much more user friendly for doing those kind of tasks Now I have PS-CS, it's a dream for the complex tasks

Enjoy!

Matt

Try downloading Irfanview. It's a very good free image viewer with basic editing facilities (including batch resizing). It's much easier to learn than Photoshop and you might find it's all you need. I have Photoshop and hardly ever use it.

:

I am going to take a beginning digital workshop in a couple of weeks. They will include some photoshop in that. I will see how it goes.

I went into photoshop 6 and did get the image small enough using the web feature, but I could not find compression options. The program seemed to change the bytes on its own as I changed the pixels. Although the image worked, it did not look that good for some reason. Maybe I will learn more in a couple of weeks

The web program had said that my image that was taken on the "best" setting only had a resolution of I think 72. That is not very much. Perhaps I need to use the Tiff setting for better resolution on the photos I wish to print out.....

Ava,

The JPEG "Best" image option from the *istD is good enough to print 20x16". Certainly a 6x4" 300dpi is stunning.

Regarding PS "save for web", you must change the image type to "JPG" (on the right hand side). It may have said "GIF" (which is another format best suited to logos and not photos). GIF'ing a photo can make it look really yucky

Once you have selected JPG, the compression options appear below - allowing you to select "Low", "Medium" and "High" (quality) or "Custom" - where you can adjust the compression option manually. For an avatar, "Low" or "Medium" should be just fine.

Hope your tutorial is successful

Matt

No offense intended, but I'm just wondering how IrfanView could ever replace Photoshop in even the simple tasks ..... peace bro!!

Ava is clearly having trouble with the basics of taking pictures. The very last thing she needs is to have to struggle to learn Photoshop at this stage.
Of course Irfanview is in no sense a replacement for Photoshop, but it does allow you to resize images, singly and in batches, very quickly. It also provides colour, contrast, brightness, saturation and sharpness adjustments also singly or by batch. It's also an excellent picture viewer, which is it's main purpose.
Ava's primary concern right now is to learn how to get the camera to produce properly focused, properly exposed and properly framed pictures in all the situations that she may encounter. Until she gets past this stage it is ridiculous for anybody to suggest she involves herself with the mammoth complexities of Photoshop. People on this site tend to be enthusiasts who have been doing all this for years and have forgotten what it was like when they knew nothing.
So no offence taken. My advice was correct for the situation. When Ava is an expert and wants to manipulate her images, that will be the time for Photoshop.

That earlier post as "guest" was me.
I've just reread Shotgun's post, and have to confess to being slighly bemused at his question.
"How could Irfanview possibly replace Photoshop at even the simplest tasks?"
The answer of course is that it can't possibly replace PS at the complicated tasks, but with simple tasks it does them far more simply and quickly. That's why I suggested it.
This post was about resizing images, and you will find if you take the trouble to try that it is FAR quicker to do this in Irfanview.
For what its's worth, Cartier Bresson didn't even print his own pictures. He took good negatives, properly framed, and let others print them. He would have had no use for image manipulation programs, but then, he was a photographer, not a computer nerd.
Not suggesting anybody here is, of course, and no offence intended!

Ooopss.... I'm sorry

I may have misunderstood your previous post regarding IrfanView/Photoshop, and immediately "recoiled" without proper thinking. I reread my post and think I shouldn't have

Yes, you have a strong point about the basic tasks IrfanView can easily do especially for the enthusiasts.

And no, I really didn't mean to say IrfanView could possibly replace PS, maybe I just misinterpreted George's post.


Cheers!

That's OK, Shotgun.

I think it is important not to over-burden novices with too much technology. First, it just gets confusing when there's so much to learn already; and second, there is a danger with digital that people will learn sloppy habits, and then use the computer to correct problems that should have been avoided the shooting stage.

Photoshop has it's place, but it's place is not to correct errors of technique.

I know I will sound like an old fogey saying this, but I think we are all too hung up on gadgets, and not concerned enough about taking pictures.

Inevitably a board like this will include quite a lot of discussion of equipment, but, as you say yourself, the camera is only as good as the photographer!