Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

Hello !

I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
them online, they become blurred !!

I do all kinds of computer graphics, from fractals to virtual
landscape, to sci-fi rendering, using softwares ranging from photoshop
to terragen to povray.

When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
take 8 hours for rendering).

As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
filesize about 800 KB or so.

However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE. In the 1024 X 768 JPG files,
all those details become blurred. No matter it's a JPG ---> JPG
shrink, or BMP ---> JPG shrink, or TIFF ---> JPG shrink, all those
details are GONE !!

I have experimented with many different graphic / photo softwares in
the shrinking process, all of them give me the same "blurring" effect.

Now my questions to all you Gurus as below ---

1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
to
1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?

2. Which software do you recommend to carry out the shrinking
operation?

Thank you all in advance !!!

Sincerely,
Lee

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

<hsyq8xg@gmail,com > wrote in message
news:52088436-f3ae-42a8-862f-cb283c8c517c@q24g2000prf.googlegroups,com ...
> Hello !
>
> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
> stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
> them online, they become blurred !!
>
> I do all kinds of computer graphics, from fractals to virtual
> landscape, to sci-fi rendering, using softwares ranging from photoshop
> to terragen to povray.
>
> When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
> copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
> that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
> XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
> take 8 hours for rendering).
>
> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>
> However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
> that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
> 1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE. In the 1024 X 768 JPG files,
> all those details become blurred. No matter it's a JPG ---> JPG
> shrink, or BMP ---> JPG shrink, or TIFF ---> JPG shrink, all those
> details are GONE !!
>
> I have experimented with many different graphic / photo softwares in
> the shrinking process, all of them give me the same "blurring" effect.
>
> Now my questions to all you Gurus as below ---
>
> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
> to
> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>
> 2. Which software do you recommend to carry out the shrinking
> operation?
>
> Thank you all in advance !!!
>
> Sincerely,
> Lee


What were expecting? If you remove seven eighths of the data then seven
eighths of the data will be gone.

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

N wrote:
> <hsyq8xg@gmail,com > wrote:

...

>> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
>> to
>> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?

...

> What were expecting? If you remove seven eighths of the data then seven
> eighths of the data will be gone.

Much less than 1/8 of the data remains.

(1024 X 768) / (8192 X 6144) = fraction remaining
786432 / 50331648 = 0.015625

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

Beryl wrote:
> N wrote:
>> <hsyq8xg@gmail,com > wrote:
>
> ...
>
>>> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
>>> to
>>> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>
> ...
>
>> What were expecting? If you remove seven eighths of the data then
>> seven eighths of the data will be gone.
>
> Much less than 1/8 of the data remains.
>
> (1024 X 768) / (8192 X 6144) = fraction remaining
> 786432 / 50331648 = 0.015625
One time when I was a child my mother sent me to the store to buy ten
pounds of potatoes. The bag was too heavy, so I took out nine pounds and
threw them away. When I got home I couldn't believe it when I could find
only one pound. I asked my mother how I could get them back, and she
told me to go back to where I threw them away and bring them back;
sadly, I couldn't find them.
Allen

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:59:52 -0500, Allen <allen@nothere,net > wrote:

>Beryl wrote:
>> N wrote:
>>> <hsyq8xg@gmail,com > wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>>>> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
>>>> to
>>>> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> What were expecting? If you remove seven eighths of the data then
>>> seven eighths of the data will be gone.
>>
>> Much less than 1/8 of the data remains.
>>
>> (1024 X 768) / (8192 X 6144) = fraction remaining
>> 786432 / 50331648 = 0.015625
>One time when I was a child my mother sent me to the store to buy ten
>pounds of potatoes. The bag was too heavy, so I took out nine pounds and
>threw them away. When I got home I couldn't believe it when I could find
>only one pound. I asked my mother how I could get them back, and she
>told me to go back to where I threw them away and bring them back;
>sadly, I couldn't find them.
>Allen


Stupid..! You should have kept the ten pounds with the one pound
and carry all 11 pounds. You should never pick on a digital career
when you grow up.
(clever people never throw potatoes away, anyway.)

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

> <hsyq8xg@gmail,com > wrote
>
>> Hello !
>>
>> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
>> stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
>> them online, they become blurred !!

Lee,
Post a cropped sample of an original size and a reduced sample, and the
method you used. Maybe someone can do better (or not). In photoshop, the
bicubic sharper option in the pull-down ought to be a tad sharper.

>> I do all kinds of computer graphics, from fractals to virtual
>> landscape, to sci-fi rendering, using softwares ranging from photoshop
>> to terragen to povray.
>>
>> When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
>> copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
>> that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
>> XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
>> take 8 hours for rendering).
>>
>> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
>> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
>> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>>
>> However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
>> that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
>> 1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE. In the 1024 X 768 JPG files,
>> all those details become blurred. No matter it's a JPG ---> JPG
>> shrink, or BMP ---> JPG shrink, or TIFF ---> JPG shrink, all those
>> details are GONE !!
>>
>> I have experimented with many different graphic / photo softwares in
>> the shrinking process, all of them give me the same "blurring" effect.
>>
>> Now my questions to all you Gurus as below ---
>>
>> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
>> to
>> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>>
>> 2. Which software do you recommend to carry out the shrinking
>> operation?
>>
>> Thank you all in advance !!!
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Lee


--
Paul Furman
www .edgehill,net
www .baynatives,com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

On May 5, 9:12 am, Paul Furman <pa...@-edgehill,net > wrote:
> > <hsyq...@gmail,com > wrote
>
> >> Hello !
>
> >> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
> >> stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
> >> them online, they become blurred !!
>
> Lee,
> Post a cropped sample of an original size and a reduced sample, and the
> method you used. Maybe someone can do better (or not). In photoshop, the
> bicubic sharper option in the pull-down ought to be a tad sharper.


The guy already did that ...

A. www .PenangA1,com /png/1K.PNG

B. www .PenangA1,com /png/4K.PNG

C. www .PenangA1,com /png/ORI.PNG

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

pg <penang@catholic.org> wrote in
news:f51b3cf5-3b71-471d-9e9e-2a52d3f1082b@b9g2000prh.googlegroups,com :

> On May 5, 9:12 am, Paul Furman <pa...@-edgehill,net > wrote:
>> > <hsyq...@gmail,com > wrote
>>
>> >> Hello !
>>
>> >> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a
>> >> number of stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the
>> >> graphic to put them online, they become blurred !!
>>
>> Lee,
>> Post a cropped sample of an original size and a reduced sample, and
>> the method you used. Maybe someone can do better (or not). In
>> photoshop, the bicubic sharper option in the pull-down ought to be a
>> tad sharper.
>
>
> The guy already did that ...
>
> A. www .PenangA1,com /png/1K.PNG
>
> B. www .PenangA1,com /png/4K.PNG
>
> C. www .PenangA1,com /png/ORI.PNG
>
>


From what I can see, the 1K version is shrinked to smaller width and, as a result, there is an expected
blurring due to pixel aliasing (partial overlaying). I can't make out what the ORI picture shows, but it
seems it's just a larger version of an aliased image section. There's nothing wrong with your software,
these are typical effects in image processing.


--
Harris

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

hsyq8xg@gmail,com wrote:
> When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
> copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
> that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
> XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
> take 8 hours for rendering).

You should render it to the size you're going to use. And then it'll only
take a few minutes to render. You can always render it to a different size
if needed.

<snip: saves as jpeg>
> However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
> that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
> 1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE.

That's what jpeg compression does. It is a lossy compression method.

How about saving as a png? It may not produce files as small as jpeg, but
the images will not be blurred (assuming you don't use jpeg compression in
the png!).

Andrew

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

If you are creating graphics from scratch, that is not from a camera of any
kind, then consider making your important detail in a vector drawing
program. If you can and if it works visually. Vectors will display as the
very best possible given the resolution of the display in use. (Look at US
paper currency under magnification. The engraving could be vectors.)

I have not read nor seen anyone 'mixing' a vector image after scaling with a
scaled raster image. The outcome will be a raster image with punctuations of
very fine lines of detail and even colors (where the colors are unitary).

(Didn't Steve Jobs' R&D people have postscript display in their neXt OS?)

What an idea. I will explore it beginning tomorrow. My current grant runs
out at 5PM today and I will be free for a week or so to use all this neat
stuff for pure play. I mean research.

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

In article <K6mdnUnCI5jXw4XVnZ2dnUVZ gOdnZ2d@supernews,com >, Pico wrote:

> (Didn't Steve Jobs' R&D people have postscript display in their neXt OS?)

nextstep/openstep used display postscript and os x uses pdf.

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

nospam wrote:
> In article <K6mdnUnCI5jXw4XVnZ2dnUVZ gOdnZ2d@supernews,com >, Pico wrote:
>
>> (Didn't Steve Jobs' R&D people have postscript display in their neXt OS?)
>
> nextstep/openstep used display postscript and os x uses pdf.

Sun's NeWS also used PostScript. All a bit
moot now. These days you would use SVG.

--
Regards,
Martin Leese
E-mail: please@see.Web.for.e-mail.INVALID
Web: http :// members.tripod,com /martin leese/

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

On Apr 29, 4:39 pm, hsyq...@gmail,com wrote:
> Hello !
>
> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
> stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
> them online, they become blurred !!
>
> I do all kinds of computer graphics, from fractals to virtual
> landscape, to sci-fi rendering, using softwares ranging from photoshop
> to terragen to povray.
>
> When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
> copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
> that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
> XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
> take 8 hours for rendering).
>
> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>
> However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
> that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
> 1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE. In the 1024 X 768 JPG files,
> all those details become blurred. No matter it's a JPG ---> JPG
> shrink, or BMP ---> JPG shrink, or TIFF ---> JPG shrink, all those
> details are GONE !!
>
> I have experimented with many different graphic / photo softwares in
> the shrinking process, all of them give me the same "blurring" effect.
>
> Now my questions to all you Gurus as below ---
>
> 1.              Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
> to
>                 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>
> 2.              Which software do you recommend to carry out the shrinking
> operation?
>
> Thank you all in advance !!!
>
> Sincerely,
> Lee

As advised, rendering to the size you want may be the best way.

Or try the "Lanczos" algorithm - eg in Irfanview. Also, downsizing in
steps may work better, in other words, try reducing in steps of say
20% (or even less), and then experiment with light sharpening (USM) at
each step - Irfanview has this function built in, but I can usually do
a little better manually. I've found what works for some images,
doesn't work as well for others.. and I've never experimented with
rendered images, so all this may be useless... (O:

The best you can hope for is one/two-pixel sharpness, so maybe you are
expecting too much?

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

mark.thomas.7@gmail,com wrote:
> On Apr 29, 4:39 pm, hsyq...@gmail,com wrote:
>>
>> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
>> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
>> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>
> As advised, rendering to the size you want may be the best way.
>
> Or try the "Lanczos" algorithm

Since the downsize is an exact integer (factor of 8)
I'm not sure Lanczos (or anything "better" than bilinear)
would help.

BugBear

Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

On Apr 29, 8:13 pm, bugbear <bugbear@trim papermule.co.uk trim> wrote:
> mark.thoma...@gmail,com wrote:
> > On Apr 29, 4:39 pm, hsyq...@gmail,com wrote:
>
> >> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
> >> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
> >> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>
> > As advised, rendering to the size you want may be the best way.
>
> > Or try the "Lanczos" algorithm
>
> Since the downsize is an exact integer (factor of 8)
> I'm not sure Lanczos (or anything "better" than bilinear)
> would help.
>
>   BugBear

But I did also refer to downsizing in much smaller steps - and Lanczos
will possibly help there...