PSE 6, need help w/ resizing, overpixels, please!!

[KittyParis]

Hello to the community. I'm in desperate need of help with images for a photo competition. I use a white Macbook, OS X, with Leopard. I open the jpg file in PSE 6, and when I am done editing, here are my steps/instructions for submission.

Flatten layers, if any.

Convert Your Image to sRGB

Resize your image
1. In Photoshop go to Image>Image Size (In Photoshop Elements go to Image>Resize) -Make sure
Scale Styles, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image boxes are checked
a. Choose Bicubic or Bicubic Sharper as method
2. In the Pixel Dimensions set the largest dimension (height or width) to 750 pixels - the other dimension
will change automatically to maintain proportion
d. Click OK



***Right here is where the problem starts. As soon as I change the pixels to maximum 750, the picture is incredibly overpixelated and ruined, as well as becoming around 4 x 5 inches. They are showing up at competition as the size of a postage stamp. I found out this has been happening for the last three months. I haven't changed anything in that time, and this week I reloaded Photoshop completely, and the same thing is happening. I'll put in two pictures to show you what I mean.

This image is the correct one, with the parameters included. I hope this helps.

And this is the resized one, terribly pixelated.

G.Sharpen your image
1. All digital images can loose some sharpness when resolution and/or size is changed - all digital
images will require a little sharpening to restore the sharpness that was lost
2. Set your view to 100%
3. Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask

Sharpening doesn't help, and neither does changing to Bicubic Sharper or Smoother. I've tried everything, but the real problem is that I haven't changed anything, yet in March this problem began. I'd be so thankful for any help with this, as I cannot figure it out. Many thanks in advance for any help.


Kitty

 

[KittyParis]

bumping up for help. Thanks!

 

[DewGuy1999]

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish, but the one thing that I noticed is that the DPI is 72, is that correct? Is the original that you're working with a photo from a digital camera? They usually have DPI higher than 72 unless you're using a really old camera. Also your original image shows as being 36 by 48 inches...3 feet by 4 feet but only 72 dpi.

 

[KittyParis]

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to accomplish, but the one thing that I noticed is that the DPI is 72, is that correct? Is the original that you're working with a photo from a digital camera? They usually have DPI higher than 72 unless you're using a really old camera. Also your original image shows as being 36 by 48 inches...3 feet by 4 feet but only 72 dpi.

Hi! Thanks for answering! The dpi is usually 74 or 180. This originals is at about 2400x3500, and most of them are. I have taken more grabs for you to see, as maybe that will help. You can see the clarity of the original vs. the other two resized ones.

original

resized at 74

resized at 180

So now the sizes are right and they won't show up at competition like a postage stamp, which disqualified me, but they are enormously pixelated, which also disqualifies me. (And they are printing like that as well.)

Again, thank you so much for answering me!!

 

[DewGuy1999]

Okay, I'm not sure I can explain this, but it's all about the size of the image and the dpi. In simple terms when you look at your original image it's large, I don't know what you're using to view your images but on my iMac with a screen resolution of 1440 x 900 one of your original images wouldn't fit on the screen at 100% so it would be zoomed down by PSE to make it fit (if I chose to have it fill the screen), whereas your after images are smaller then my display resolution so if I had PSE (fill the screen) it would zoomed up by PSE to fill the sceen. When PSE does this it's only the screen display that's zooming up or down the image itself isn't being changed for this purpose. If you double click the Magnifying Glass in PSE it will display the image at 100%. Doing this to your after image I imagine it doesn't look so bad. I hope this makes some sense.

 

[jared_kipe]

Lets say you take a 500x500px image.

Lets say you resize that to 5x5px. Does it look pixelated? Depends. If you view it at 100% then its just a colored dot. If you view it at 10,000% (making it take up 500x500pixels. Then it looks pixelated because there are exactly 25 pixels of color information.

If you are viewing an image over 100% it will look pixelated, this is no surprise to anyone.

From the general scale of the earlier shots, I'd say that window is at least 800-1000px tall and wide. Made worse by the fact that you can tell from the horizontal (bottom) scroll bar that you're only seeing roughly 50% of the images width. So you're viewing an image that you resized to 560px wide and viewing it at 300%+ or something. You will see the individual pixels.

 

[KittyParis]

I understand what you are saying, but there has to be more involved than that. I'm sending these pics on to digital competition, and they are appearing postage stamp sized, and pixelated (like the last two ones). So it's not just me looking at them in an oversized way. The person receiving them is using the same Macbook and mail that I use, so it's not a conflict either. Does that make more sense? I'm at my wit's end with this! Thanks!

 

[jared_kipe]

See attached images for demonstration.

 

[KittyParis]

See attached images for demonstration.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Am I supposed to click on some part of it?

 

[jared_kipe]

I understand what you are saying, but there has to be more involved than that. I'm sending these pics on to digital competition, and they are appearing postage stamp sized, and pixelated (like the last two ones). So it's not just me looking at them in an oversized way. The person receiving them is using the same Macbook and mail that I use, so it's not a conflict either. Does that make more sense? I'm at my wit's end with this! Thanks!

I don't have photoshop elements, but open the original file. Hopefully from the file menu, you have an option like Save for Web and Devices.

Resize your image from in there, and save the new file to the desktop. Open in preview. If it still doesn't look right, attach a copy here. ~500-700 should be fine for uploading here.

 

[jared_kipe]

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Am I supposed to click on some part of it?

No you're supposed to compare the 100% version to the same file viewed at 300%.

If you'd like I could give it a go through the "share desktop" feature of ichat.

 

[DewGuy1999]

I understand what you are saying, but there has to be more involved than that. I'm sending these pics on to digital competition, and they are appearing postage stamp sized, and pixelated (like the last two ones). So it's not just me looking at them in an oversized way. The person receiving them is using the same Macbook and mail that I use, so it's not a conflict either. Does that make more sense? I'm at my wit's end with this! Thanks!

But what you're showing us for screen captures are from within PSE correct? Are the receivers viewing them in mail or are they saving them and viewing them with PSE or Preview or something else? Can you attach one of the after images to a message here (use the paperclip icon) and we can have a look at it?

 

[KittyParis]

I don't have photoshop elements, but open the original file. Hopefully from the file menu, you have an option like Save for Web and Devices.

Resize your image from in there, and save the new file to the desktop. Open in preview. If it still doesn't look right, attach a copy here. ~500-700 should be fine for uploading here.

Okay, I followed the Save for Web instructions, and it's the same thing when I look at it in Preview.

 

[KittyParis]

But what you're showing us for screen captures are from within PSE correct? Are the receivers viewing them in mail or are they saving them and viewing them with PSE or Preview or something else? Can you attach one of the after images to a message here (use the paperclip icon) and we can have a look at it?

Here is what the competition is receiving/seeing: both are 248x240.

 

[jared_kipe]

Lets break this down.

The image you posted looks fine. Is not pixelated and is in fact 750px tall (though with questionable black margins...)

So I'd say that is working perfectly (assuming you saved at JPEG 100 or 95) and is ready to go.

I will assume that "Here is what the competition is receiving/seeing" means that this is on a webpage. Which probably means they are resizing the images or cropping them for convenient view on the internet.

 

[KittyParis]

Lets break this down.

The image you posted looks fine. Is not pixelated and is in fact 750px tall (though with questionable black margins...)

So I'd say that is working perfectly (assuming you saved at JPEG 100 or 95) and is ready to go.

I will assume that "Here is what the competition is receiving/seeing" means that this is on a webpage. Which probably means they are resizing the images or cropping them for convenient view on the internet.

Wow, that's great! But why does it still look pixelated in Preview? The "black margins" are the background of the whole picture, unless you're seeing something I'm not. The competition receives the pictures on a Macbook like mine, and projects them onto the viewing screen. It's not done through the Internet.

 

[jared_kipe]

Hey if you're emailing them and just dropping them into the outgoing message, have you looked in the lower right hand corner for the drop down box labeled "Image Size", choose Actual Size if you don't want it shrunken.

 

[jared_kipe]

Wow, that's great! But why does it still look pixelated in Preview? The "black margins" are the background of the whole picture, unless you're seeing something I'm not. The competition receives the pictures on a Macbook like mine, and projects them onto the viewing screen. It's not done through the Internet.

Does it look roughly to this scale when you open it in preview? You're not pressing the Zoom buttons are you?

 

[DewGuy1999]

Okay, I followed the Save for Web instructions, and it's the same thing when I look at it in Preview.

Looks fine to me in Preview or Firefox. The only way I see that it would appear pixelated is if I zoom in on it in Preview, if I view it as actual size it looks fine.

 

[KittyParis]

Yes, it does look like the same scale. I'm happy to hear it looks normal to you both in applications. The only thing that worries me is that I understand if I zoom in to see detail it could look pixelated, but I assure you that it didn't used to. I could go in very close and it would still look fine. Do you think this means I have to do all my resizing in Web page now?

 

[jared_kipe]

Yes, it does look like the same scale. I'm happy to hear it looks normal to you both in applications. The only thing that worries me is that I understand if I zoom in to see detail it could look pixelated, but I assure you that it didn't used to. I could go in very close and it would still look fine. Do you think this means I have to do all my resizing in Web page now?

Sizing down destroys information. After resizing you cannot "zoom into it" Just like you can't zoom any further into its original 3000x2000 ish pixels than 100% and somehow end up with MORE detail than the original image captured.

When you resize for web or a slide show or whatever it is always a compromise for file size (and processing power in certain applications).

Your last sentence doesn't mean a lot to me, but you should be resizing however you created the version you uploaded.