Should I do things differently? (1 Viewer)

Hi
I have been taking pics for just over a year now and wonder if my photoshop work could be done better. The method I outline below was offered to me by a local respected photographer and uses elements 2 (a freebie!)

First I download the pics from camera and save them to DVD with no changes.

I then put them through elements 2.

(1) Crop as necessary
(2) Resize (usually to 600 width)
(3) I then view actual pixels
(4) Adjust the exposure - enhance then use quick fix
(5) Filter - sharpen
(6) Save to web
(7) PLace on website and/or blog

So am I doing this work correctly or do you have some better ideas that I could use?

Some pics below using this method.

Cheers
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I would leave the resize to the very end. The sharpening routine will give better results when it's got all the original pixels to work with.

Cheers, Frank

hollis_f said:

I would leave the resize to the very end. The sharpening routine will give better results when it's got all the original pixels to work with.

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Well, you can do this (it is a commonly argued point), but then you should also sharpen after the resize, because resizing down almost always makes the image slightly less sharp.

To my eye the posted pics look over sharpened, as with all post processing you should only do it if you think the image needs it.

Cheers, so far.

Anyone care to relate what they do from camera to webpost?

I am sure this would be a good learning point.

Well, one point I have made in the past in this forum relates to the order of processing - i.e. should you work on the full-sized image and only downsize at the end, or should you downsize first?

One way to do things is to do all your work (sharpening, tweaking the brightness and contrast, cropping for composition, etc) on the fullsize image and then save that as your "best" image (of course, you still have your original saved separately). Then, whatever you want to do later with the image (e.g. print it, display it on the web, send it as an email attachment) is done starting with this best image.

If you do all your work only trying to get a small image for web display and only save that final web-ready image, you'll have to redo all that work if you want to print your image later.

So, using this idea, the order would be do all your work on the full image, crop for composition, save it. Then downsize for web-display, sharpen it again, save it with a different name, and put it up on the web.

One word about web display - I think your size of 600 width might be a little small for horizontal images. I think 800 would be better. Don't forget, this relates to monitor resolution settings. An image that is 800 pixels wide will exactly fill a monitor that is set at 600x800 resolution. Nowadays, most folks are using at least 1024 x 768 setting, so you can afford to go up to 800 width and still leave room for the borders and top menus and buttons of the browser, and even folks still using 600x800 won't have to scroll much.

Of course, this depends on the website. I think this forum may want only 600 width, and if you are putting images on a formatted webpage, you might even want smaller (say 300). But for use in a web "album" - one image per screen, filling the screen - or for emailing, 800 width is fine.

Many thanks, RAH. "Food for thought"!!

I think I have sized at 600 as I know they will fit on here without problems. Next time I will try bigger.

Mono said:

To my eye the posted pics look over sharpened, as with all post processing you should only do it if you think the image needs it.

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Hi Mono

Thanks for your input.

I am wondering if my eyesight is affecting my sharpening? I use reading glasses for close up work, but not always when working on my pics. I will keep this in mind for the future.

always sharpen when you have zoomed in to the image to at least 100%

Duke Leto said:

always sharpen when you have zoomed in to the image to at least 100%

Click to expand...

Cheers, Steve :t: