Image Resolution Questions

[Gigglepottomus]

Hi John,

I had a few questions about graphics resolution I was hoping you could help me with. First let me give you a short description of how I process my graphics.

First I create the image in Microsoft Paint as a bitmap image then I cut the image and paste it into a trial version of VCW VicMan's photo editor to convert it to jpg form. I usually maintain the resolution of my graphics throughout this process however run into trouble when I try to resize the graphics.

1. Is a BMP higher resolution than a jpg?

2. When resizing a jpg Image using VCW VicMans photo editor I tend to get a blur effect. Is their a way to eliminate this?

3. When resizing a bmp image in Microsoft Paint the lines become distorted and come apart. Is their a way to eliminate this?

4. Is it possible to increase resolution before you resize an image?

5. I have heard that often the way a picture looks on screen is very different from how it looks when printed. I do not own a printer so is their a way to preview how an image may look printed without actually printing it? If not when sending an image to someone who wants to print it. How big should the picture you send them be for the person printing it to get the best results?

I would appreciate any advice you could give me on this matter.

Thanks John

[janisian]

Gig, I'm not going to be of much help, but I've sent a note to John to check your post.
I can tell you these few things:
1. We had problems with the illustrations Pat did in Paint, when it came to reproducing them for the CD artwork. Very difficult to work with, impossible to enlarge without severe distortion.
(She wound up hand-drawing the album cover artwork because of this, so we could use it in posters.)
2. Per John this afternoon, you don't want anything higher than a 300 dpi for use on things like cards.

[Gigglepottomus]

Janis, thanks for the help and alerting John.

[Amy in Vermont]

For what its worth, I do all my graphics in Paint Shop Pro, which is now a Corel product. I've been using it since version 3.. its now in version 10. I find it easy to use, damn near as versatile as PhotoShop, and way cheaper to purchase. Even now, when I can get just about any software I want for free, I stick with it.

A

[Chet]

Giggles

BMP format filesize is bigger than JPG.

You can actually change the resolution of any picture. However, the size will be reduced - the higher the resolution, the smaller the size. E.g., a 1120x960 picture with resolution of 96 pixels per inch has a print size of approximately 11.6 inches x 10.0 inches. Increase the resolution to 300 pixels per inch, and the print size is reduced to approximately 3.7 inches by 3.2 inches.

In JPG format, the above picture is only 132kb. I saved it in BMP format, and the filesize went up to 3.15MB.

Hope the above was what you're looking for.

[DaveM]

I'm still running Paint Shop Pro 4.14, and it's serving me just fine.

One other consideration when saving an image as a JPEG: the image can be "compressed" to reduce the file size even more, but some loss of detail starts to show up as the degree of compression is increased. I have used compression as high as 50% for things like eBay photos, but cannot recommend more than 25% if you don't want to start losing some of the texture in your images.

[Gigglepottomus]

Thanks Chet and Dave Great tips on reducing file size however I am not looking to reduce file size but rather to find a way to increase ACTUAL size and resolution at the same time without causing distortion.

Thank you both though for the tips on reducing file size I am sure I can use them to save space on my hard drive. :)

[RedjackRyan]

Giggly, you might find the resources at this site useful to you..

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/und_resolution.shtml

Different image formats http://www.designer-info.com/Writing/bmp_tiff_jpeg_gif.htm

[Gigglepottomus]

Thank you Redjack......Great links. :)