Confusion Please be patient.

[Talon 1]

Hi,

I have just downloaded 'picasso' and it is very good but there are a few confusing aspects to a newbie like me .

First of all is 'Saving' the Picture . When i save it it asks me what file i want it in. I try to put it into my Bird file on the Desktop. but all that happens is that it becomes a File within a File and then the whole thing gets jumbled up?
I have files of the same bird all over the place with a file on its own then its a file in a file.....Nightmare.
Laymans terms for me please as i am trying to set up my own gallery instead of using my husbands.

The other question i would like to ask you all is when i crop a picture does it loose its pixels, what i am trying to say is i want to size my pictures to 15X10 with a D70 (6 million). But do i keep that size regardless if i crop or alter the image?
If i was to burn onto a Disc for a photograph how could i make sure that i have maximum pixels and can i burn it to size.

I have a 19inch Monitor and on my wallpaper they come up Brilliant is that not bigger than 15X10?
I just want to make sure that i can burn the best copy i can to a disc with maximum pixels. And do the shops then do it to size so it does not matter what size it is in the disc or will i have to make it 15X10 on the Disc.
i would ask dave but he is away this week and i would rather learn myself.
Can anyone help this newbie.
It all sounds a bit of a scrambled confused mess i hope you can understand what i mean.

Thankyou for your kind support.

best wishes

Alli

[RAH]

Hi,

The other question i would like to ask you all is when i crop a picture does it loose its pixels, what i am trying to say is i want to size my pictures to 15X10 with a D70 (6 million). But do i keep that size regardless if i crop or alter the image?

Alli

The answer is no, you do not keep all the pixels in an image if you crop it. Cropping it is just like what it looks like on the screen - you are discarding parts of the picture. If you use a "resize" you can also lose pixels in the image if you are not familiar with this operation and don't know the difference between the 2 types of resize: resizing for printing, and resizing to make the image's dimensions smaller (as you might do to make a picture smaller to attach it to an email).

I recommend that you learn some PC basics first. You seem a little confused about what constitutes a file. I don't know what a "file in a file" means. Do you mean a file in a folder, perhaps? There are plenty of books that teach the basics of Windows - e.g. files, folders, etc.

I would also recommend that you take all the pictures from your camera and save them in a separate place (burn them to a CD, place them in a separate folder on your harddrive, whatever), before you do ANY manipulation (like cropping, getting them to print at 15x10, etc). In other words, do your manipulation on COPIES of your originals, not the originals. That way you won't lose your originals, which you should think of as your "negatives." This is not just a recommendation for newbies. Folks with experience do this too.

If Picassa makes any of this seem confusing, I'd stop using it, at least till you can figure it out.

[Talon 1]

The answer is no, you do not keep all the pixels in an image if you crop it. Cropping it is just like what it looks like on the screen - you are discarding parts of the picture. If you use a "resize" you can also lose pixels in the image if you are not familiar with this operation and don't know the difference between the 2 types of resize: resizing for printing, and resizing to make the image's dimensions smaller (as you might do to make a picture smaller to attach it to an email).

I recommend that you learn some PC basics first. You seem a little confused about what constitutes a file. I don't know what a "file in a file" means. Do you mean a file in a folder, perhaps? There are plenty of books that teach the basics of Windows - e.g. files, folders, etc.

I would also recommend that you take all the pictures from your camera and save them in a separate place (burn them to a CD, place them in a separate folder on your harddrive, whatever), before you do ANY manipulation (like cropping, getting them to print at 15x10, etc). In other words, do your manipulation on COPIES of your originals, not the originals. That way you won't lose your originals, which you should think of as your "negatives." This is not just a recommendation for newbies. Folks with experience do this too.

If Picassa makes any of this seem confusing, I'd stop using it, at least till you can figure it out.

Thankyou but yes i did mean a File in a folder i am affraid i am not to good at getting words across.
I tend to do my 'Resize resample' on Irfanview .I think i will wait a bit longer for some advice.

Thankyou.

[Keith Reeder]

Irfanview does a perfectly good job of cropping and resizing images - I use it all the time for just those purposes.

As RAH suggests, cropping is literally "chopping off" those bits of the image which you don't want, so it must result in a reduction in the number of pixels.

This might or might not be important: if for example you're trying to to crop an individual image significantly and have what's left completely fill the original frame size, then - regardless of how many pixels you're left with - the image will not look as good if you have to significantly resize it upwards (ie enlarge it) to the extent that you're magnifying the individual pixels.

The image will become "blocky" and ill-defined and what you're actually doing by doing this is the same as using digital zoom on the camera - and as we all know, that's rarely the route to a quality image.

I would strongly advise not worrying at all about the number of pixels in the image and instead just use your eyes: if the image looks good to you, it is good, regardless of how many pixels it took to get there.

[RAH]

Irfanview does a perfectly good job of cropping and resizing images - I use it all the time for just those purposes.

I would strongly advise not worrying at all about the number of pixels in the image and instead just use your eyes: if the image looks good to you, it is good, regardless of how many pixels it took to get there.
Yes, IrfanView is a great program for cropping, resizing, etc. Paint Shop Pro is better, of course, but it isn't free.

The only trouble with ignoring the number of pixels is that if you are going to PRINT the image, it can look MUCH worse on paper than on the screen unless you pay attention to the image size (i.e. its dimensions - width x height - the number of pixels it has).

Alli, the primarly guideline here is that if you want to PRINT an image (as opposed to just looking at it on the screen), do NOT use resize/resample in Irfan. Instead, you should use the Print dialog, where you can specify how the image should print. Another way is to use the Image Properties dialog (just press "I"), and set the resolution DPI there to 200 or greater in both boxes. The "print size (from DPI)" field then tells you the size print you will get.

If you use resize/resample you WILL change the number of pixels in your image (that is what it does), so you can really damage your images. Only use it if you want to send someone a reduced sized file as an email attachment, or you want to post a picture on this forum, for example. I'm making a big deal about this because I've seen a lot of beginners get burned bady with this.

[Keith Reeder]

Oh I agree completely with what you say about printing, RAH - I probably should have suggested not worrying exclusively about the number of pixels rather than saying not to worry "at all".

I'd still want my eyes to be the final arbiter though, and I'd be running off test prints to establish the best combination of print size and detail.

You've mentioned something important about printing which hasn't been touched on too: the DPI level is really important, and for printing the higher the better: whereas for PC use anything more than 72 DPI is just a waste of space.