Posted: 1/24/2010 9:32:24 PM EDT
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I've got a side job as a webmaster for a small company. The boss has a graphics person who designs banners and buttons and all sorts of things, and then I get to use their work on the website/newsletters/etc.
Graphics person sent the boss (who is pretty computer illiterate) a JPEG banner that's 300 pixels per inch, and about 2300 x 500 pixels. This is a big-ass banner. When I shrink it down to roughly 500x100, the boss complains that it doesn't look right, that there's some distortion. I tell him it's like trying to condense a wall-sized mural down to the size of a paperback book. He tells me it should be like moving a projector closer to or farther away from a wall - the smaller the picture gets, the clearer and higher quality it should be. I'm not a graphical artist, and honestly both arguments make sense to me. My gut tells me I'm right. What sayeth the hive? |
| You say "distortion" and the first thing I think of is, proportional scaling. Are the vertical and horizontal scaling proportions equal when scaling, i.e. you scale vertically and horizontally at 50%, 60% or whatever the percentage is? In Photoshop there is an option that is usually on that ties both vertical and horizontal size together so when you adjust one it adjusts the other equally. |
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Download Gimp... Windows: http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html Linux: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ Even a version for the Mac... Go to Image...then select scale image...and size the image to the pixels you want... It will maintain the size ratio, unless you break the chain link in the menu box (you'll see what I am talking about). Gimp runs a lot faster than photoshop and meets all my needs. |
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Quoted:
I've got a side job as a webmaster for a small company. The boss has a graphics person who designs banners and buttons and all sorts of things, and then I get to use their work on the website/newsletters/etc. Graphics person sent the boss (who is pretty computer illiterate) a JPEG banner that's 300 pixels per inch, and about 2300 x 500 pixels. This is a big-ass banner. When I shrink it down to roughly 500x100, the boss complains that it doesn't look right, that there's some distortion. I tell him it's like trying to condense a wall-sized mural down to the size of a paperback book. He tells me it should be like moving a projector closer to or farther away from a wall - the smaller the picture gets, the clearer and higher quality it should be. I'm not a graphical artist, and honestly both arguments make sense to me. My gut tells me I'm right. What sayeth the hive? non sequitur. you are talking about 2 different things. distortion = not constraining the proportions resizing to a smaller image = throwing away information. HOWEVER, in terms of information(detail)/area (say 1 square inch of your screen), the perceived detail density will be greater because you are cramming in more detail into less area. Make sense? Post the images. |
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As others have implied; the quality of the software you are using to do the shrinking will impact the quality of the final result. Generally you want to use a bicubic or bilinear algorithm. Also, you will get better results if you open the original image and then directly resize it to the desired size. Don't resize multiple times trying to get down to a good size, each time you resize you are throwing away information and the net result of doing it in steps is worse then just doing it in one step. |
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JPEG banner that's 300 pixels per inch, and about 2300 x 500 pixels
First off, there's no such thing as dpi in this use. The image will be about 1.67" wide on a 300dpi output device like a printer or about 5.2" wide on a 96dpi monitor. dpi isn't used by the browser when showing an image on a web page. For the best resizing, get the graphic artist to do the resizing with the original material. JPEG compression throws away the high frequency information and adds distortion around any sharp changes. Think of how a square wave looks when you put it through a low pass filter. That means that opening and resaving a JPEG will cause distortion that gets exponentially (I think it's exponential rather than simply a multiple) worse. The ringing around the high frequency changes creates more ringing when you recompress. You should always resize from the uncompressed source. Also, resizing text should be done with a special purpose tool rather than one that simply resizes the image. For example, if you take 96 point text then reduce the size to 9 points with a word processor it is still easy to read. If you save that same text in a bitmap then resize it with an image editor, then the text will not look as good. Also, because JPEGs throw away high frequencies, the sharp text edges will be fuzzy from the ringing. That's another reason you should get the artist to resize the image for you from the source. If you can't get the original artist to resize the image then look into using a higher quality setting on the JPEG conversion tool you're using.z |
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Quoted:
If your Arfcom Photoshopper falls though, let me know. I can whip it up in 2 minutes. Also, ask the graphics guy for a .PNG instead of a .JPG next time. Thanks for the offer. The gentleman who helped me gave me 3 different banners which I'll be showing the boss tomorrow. You guys rock. Thanks everybody. |