PHotos turning out soft instead of sharp. Your techniques?

[julieannshoeman]

I don't know if it is just me, but when I view the photos on my computer, they appear sharp. I usually save it as jpeg at around 400 X 600 or so and the resolution is about 200. That's considered high quality. However when I upload it on pbase, they turn out soft.

I've looked at many pbase galleries and most of them look so sharp & vivid. I don't know what I'm doing wrong?

Should I be using different settings? Do you purposely oversharpen before uploading to pbase? Would be interested in the techniques you use.

Thanks so much!

[bobfloyd]

Saving at 200 really does not help you any as most monitors on the market today cannot do any better than somewhere between 72 and 96.

I reduce my photos to 800 on the longest side and reduce the dpi to 96. Then I slighty over sharpen, as a photo with lower resolution can stand more sharpening than a high resolution photo (got that from a photoshop book by Scott Kelby as I am not sharp enough to have figured it out on my own). Since I started this I am much happier with what I post.

Not that I consider myself to have it all figured out yet. I still tinker with my formula constantly trying to make things better. Also take into account that every photo is different so no standard set formula will work in every single case.

[alexhoggarth]

For the WEB I use 72 DPI on all submissions. I am not aware of Pbase compressing your files as long as they are not too large.

I resize to 800 by 600.

[alexhoggarth]

I looked at some of your recent uploads and some where not resized at all. I suspect choosing smaller options than 'original' is going to display a soft image with files this size.

How this helps

[julieannshoeman]

Haha I'm definitely no guru like Scott Kelby. Which book was it? I would love a book that helps with issues of sharing on the web and so forth.

I will definitely try the 72-96pdi. I am happy to hear that. It will save a lot of space on pbase. I'm sure others were happy to hear abt the little tidbit. I use a pretty good monitor. Ill have to embark on a project on pbase and try to convert and fix up the photos and "replace" them.

Good comment too about some not being resized and then becoming soft as a result. I am glad I saved my photos in a pbase folder so its not too much trouble to convert....just time consuming.

Thanks!

[alexphotos]

I resize with photoshop at 600 dpi for the largest side with bicubic reseample image process. That it for my upload.

[bobfloyd]

Haha I'm definitely no guru like Scott Kelby. Which book was it? I would love a book that helps with issues of sharing on the web and so forth.

The one I have been using here is called "the Photoshop CS book for Digital Photographers" but there is also one for CS2. Maybe the best money I have spent since going digital. It is very usable. Not really a "go through" lesson by lesson book but rather more of a reference "how to" book.

Hope that helps and good luck.

[annayu]

DPI makes no difference for web. You can save your picture at 1 dpi and it would look as sharp as 72 or 96 or whatever. An important step is to apply a little USM after downsizing. But don't overdo the sharpening because oversharpened pictures are worse than soft ones.

Here are 2 pictures, one at 300 dpi and one at 1 dpi. No difference. You can try it yourself.

http://www.pbase.com/annayu2/image/56778414

http://www.pbase.com/annayu2/image/56778413

[derblauereiter]

Anna you are a Pbase pillar, a column, a rock...

~ l'Autre

[dlarson2]

To resize for the Web: for a Landscape image, try resizing at 800 pixels wide with Bicubic (not Bicubic Sharper or Bicubic Softer) or for Portrait image 400 wide (people won't need to scroll down to view your image). As stated in the above message apply USM; I like to use the following as a starting point–
• Strength 85%
• Radius 0.8 Pixels
• Threshold 3
The above setting has treated me well as a starting point, but you will need to adjust these settings based on your image and personal taste. Hope this helps...

–Dave

[annayu]

Anna you are a Pbase pillar, a column, a rock...

~ l'Autre

Yeah, some people consider me a stone...

[flseabreeze]

Ana is quite correct. DPI is merely a software setting, used in printing - it makes zippo difference on screen. You can in fact type any DPI figure want into a photo's settings - it will only impact print size and quality.

Unsharp mask will be your best friend - resize as you please, and apply some USM to taste (view), this will recover the sharpness loss on a resize.

[rickl52]

Would be interested in the techniques you use.

This is a nice presentation of various techniques for sharpening. What works well for the web may not be the best technique for printing.

http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/psc/psc04.php

Rick

[mesullivan]

Thanks for the tips. I have noticed my images after uploading seem softer than before uploading. I will try the resizing then a little extra sharpening next time.

[bhusk]

I have this same problem and it drives me batty....

I swear, my images on my c drive look sharper than the ones I've uploaded to pbase. When I look at some other galleries though, the images look sharp so I'm confused.

I resize my images to 800 on the long end and the very last thing I do before i save to jpg is I USM at around 90%, .3, 0.

Should I be saving as jpg and THEN applying my USM? Although even when I save to JPG, the picture still looks sharp, but not the version I've uploaded to pbase.

One other thing I do is after I've resized the image to 800, I increase the canvas size by .25 inches and add a drop shadow (you can see that on every one of my pictures in my gallery). So the image is slightly larger than 800 on the long end due to the increase of the canvas. Would this make my images too large so pbase compresses it?