Saving for web vs printing

[snappd]

Ok, so you have probably seen the mess I made of my first few image posts......they were all fuzzy & not indicative of the real photos. I did however redeem myself by trying out the 'save for web' function in CS3, with a pretty significant improvement...... & re-posting the results.

What I would like to know is....what does the 'Save for web' function actually do? All I did in the SFW dialogue box was go to image resize & select 800 on the long side, upped the image quality to 90, & hit save. Is this the right thing to do, or are there other methods or more steps to really making my images look good on the net.....apart from being a better photographer

I would be interested in hearing what others do to save for web & what they do differently for saving for print?
I'm guessing that DPI has a great deal to do with it as the shots I uploaded originally were cropped & saved at 300 DPI (should they have been left at 72?), then just using photobucket uploader resized to fit a 17" screen & hitting upload.

Thanks

[chrisk]

snapped, i was referred to the below program for resizing and i think its brilliant.
http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm

its free, easy to use, allows simple borders, reliable, has clever features and best of all its very fast.

so, my workflow basically...

edit the RAW photo first; save as, (in highest quality), to a FINAL JPEG folder for printing and/ or customer supply.

once i finish a shoot, i load em all up from the FINAL JPEG folder using the resizer as a single batch for all the photos and output them to a RESIZED folder.

easy peasy.

[snappd]

Thanks for that Rooz, I have ACDSee which has similar batch processing capabilities & also very easy to use, what do you do though if you need to crop an image, do you crop it in the "resized" folder using the crop tool with the dpi at 300 for printing, or do you leave it at 72?

I have been doing it this way..... crop to the size I want at 300dpi, edit, then "save as" into an "edited" folder, or sometimes I use CTRL A to select the whole photo, then "transform selection" & "image crop" to keep the original dimensions & dpi. Then if I need to print it I use the crop tool as above, changing the dpi to 300.

Not sure what other people do, but any suggestions for streamlining the workflow would be much appreciated...

[chrisk]

i dont know what dpi is, i'll leave that to others. i have never changed that setting...i dont even know where to find it ! lol
to answer your question, all my editing is done in my usual editor, (captureNX2), including cropping.

i dont convert anything to web until its fully edited.

[radar]

For landscape photos, the method outlined below works pretty good.

http://pacificnw.naturephotographers.ne ... toshop.htm

cheers,

André

[Aussie Dave]

DPI is only relevant when printing. It does not have consequence on a monitor.
Saving an image 800px long @ 72dpi or at 300dpi will appear the same on screen - but will print differently.

If you are looking to print your image, resizing to the correct pixel size is advised.
The formula I use to determine this size is:

[inch length] x [dpi required] = pixel value for long edge
and
[inch short] x [dpi required] = pixel value for short edge

eg, for an 8" x 12", printed at 300dpi:
8 x 300 = 2400 pixels
12 x 300 = 3600 pixels

The same photo printed at 72dpi (which would be far less than ideal for an 8"x12") would need a pixel size of
8 x 72 = 576 pixels
12 x 72 = 864 pixels

Generally, when you start printing at larger sizes, the dpi can afford to be lowered from 300dpi (as the viewing distance should be greater and the larger printed pixels should not be noticable (at that greater distance).

Again, this is ONLY relevant to printing images.

[Mr Darcy]

One thing that "Save For Web" does that I find quite annoying is that it strips out the EXIF data.
The camera records details on how the picture is taken (ISO, Speed, F Stop etc) I add my details, and where the picture was taken, then "Save for Web" takes it all away.

I prefer to get the picture how I want it; Save (to keep the changes in high res), then change Mode and image size as required then SaveAs JPG for uploading.

[snappd]

Thanks for the input everyone...

DPI is only relevant when printing. It does not have consequence on a monitor.

This makes me wonder then, why did my photos look different the second time? would it have something to do with the fact that when I originally uploaded using photobuckets bulk uploader I did not resize them at all, as you can do that in the uploader? should I have resized to the required 800 pixels on the long side first?

One thing that "Save For Web" does that I find quite annoying is that it strips out the EXIF data.

Yes that would be annoying Greg, I didn't even realize it did that.

then change Mode and image size as required then SaveAs JPG for uploading

Sorry for my ignorance Greg, but what do you mean here when you say change mode?

I appreciate your help everyone thanks...

[soarer]

Some great advice on printing, i had no idea.

Also just downloaded faststone and its a very fast resizer, good for me as it can add a watermark and also a plain black border