Stumped

[johnd]

I'm a bit stumped with this pic. It's as sharp as a tack printed but gone real soft, almost out of focus when I uploaded it. I'm saving for web in PS, quality 60, size 800 X something to give about 200K.




I don't get it?

Can someone give me some advice please?

Thanks
John

[jethro]

strange!

[johndec]

John,
After you've resized it, reopen it in PS and apply these USM settings:

Amount: 200-400%
Radius: 0.3
Threshold: 0

(A tip from Scott Kelby's PSCS Book)

[yeocsa]

well, when you save it for web, you lost alot of details (quality = 10% or so). Use "save as", select jpeg and then choose the quality that you need.

regards,

Arthur

[PiroStitch]

Exactly what has been said. When you sharpened it, it was probably at full res which is ~3000 pixels wide. The image you've posted up is 600px wide so all that sharpening has disappeared due to the size reduction. Jpeg conversion also doesn't help the quality of a photo. If you want it to remain exactly as it was, post it at 100% quality (ie. no compression) but people on a dialup connection will not be your best friend

The best compromise I've seen so far is to resize, save at jpeg ~80% then re-apply a USM to the jpeg. Don't forget when posting images on the web, it is just to provide an indication of the photo and some lost of detail unfortunately has to be deemed acceptable. To gain an accurate picture perfect indication is to print it out and mail it to everyone

Hope that helps.

[stubbsy]

John

Just to make this completely clear. USM is the last thing to be done when processing an image. So if you want a printable and a web version save your file as TIFF or PSD or DNG format BEFORE USM. Then resize it for the web in photoshop via the image size menu - do not use save for web. Having resized it apply the USM. Then save as jpeg then close without saving any more changes.

Next reopen the copy you saved earlier, apply USM and save in what ever format you want for printing. Result is you have two different versions which have had USM applied when they are at their final size.

Save for web, while easy has its flaws and this is one of them - another is it trashes EXIF data.

If you use Nikon Capture this USM trickery is not necessary as it applies the USM when saving the file each time (it stores the settings in the NEF rather than applying them).

Hope this helps.

[johnd]

Thanks heaps to you all for the tips. I'll go try them out on the weekend and have a better result next week.

I've only had my D70 for 2 months, and feel I'm on a very steep learning curve. But it's a lot of fun and I get a real buzz out of learning something new, which at the moment is daily (at least).

So much to learn and so little time. But this forum really helps. Best thing since sliced bread I reckon.


Cheers
John

[mudder]

There's heaps o' good tips re the sharpness but just wanted to say I LOVE this shot... I really like foresty, mossy stuff and this is great, a little extra colour saturation and some backgroung darkening and this would look fantastic...

Cheers.

[johnd]

Thanks to all for the tips.

Mudder, I added a little extra colour saturation and darkened the background a little.

Then as Stubbsy suggested I saved as PSD so I can play with it and print it later. Then used image size to bring it down to 800, then applied the USM settings as suggested by johndec (are those USM settings a suggestion for just web images?).



I think the end result is a whole lot better.

Thanks for the team effort

Cheers
John

[SteveGriffin]

Much better!!
Very nice work

[mudder]

That looks great! You've got a shot worth printing and framing... Good stuff

[johndec]

That's 100% better John

Yeah, those settings are his "sharpening for web after resizing" suggestions. They are designed to be applied after any pre-resizing sharpening.

[johnd]

Thanks Steve, Mudder and Johndec.

Johndec, I've committed those settings to memory for the future (well written them down anyway).

Cheers
John