«

Hi all,

already posted on rec.photo.digital.point+shoot but probably more
appropriate here

During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
Duane Reade shop.

It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
any editing.
Really smart.

Now the question: the images are below 2MP in size, but at least they
hold a lot of information because are around 2MB in size each. The
original images were almost of the same size. What would you recommend
to get best possible large prints in, say, 12x10 or 16x12? Directly
asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a good
shareware software for upsampling?

Thanks for any help

"-=_AnTaNi_=-" <> wrote in message
news:8Yfze.130335$...
> Hi all,
>
> already posted on rec.photo.digital.point+shoot but probably more
> appropriate here
>
> During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
> Duane Reade shop.
>
> It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
> 1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
> any editing.
> Really smart.
>
> Now the question: the images are below 2MP in size, but at least they
> hold a lot of information because are around 2MB in size each. The
> original images were almost of the same size. What would you recommend
> to get best possible large prints in, say, 12x10 or 16x12? Directly
> asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
> resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a good
> shareware software for upsampling?
>
> Thanks for any help
>
As the images exist right now, it is unreasonable to expect good results
from any picture larger than 5x7.
You will be disappointed with the photos unless you increase the resolution
by interpolation. You need about 200 dpi for any print of any size; hence
you will need to double number of pixels in each dimension. I use
Photoshop's bicubic interpolation, but I have not used it for that much of
an increase. Hence, I cannot tell you that this is what you should use.
Jim

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:07:32 GMT, in rec.photo.digital -=_AnTaNi_=-
<> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>already posted on rec.photo.digital.point+shoot but probably more
>appropriate here
>
>During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
>Duane Reade shop.
>
>It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
>1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
>any editing.
>Really smart.
>
>Now the question: the images are below 2MP in size, but at least they
>hold a lot of information because are around 2MB in size each. The
>original images were almost of the same size. What would you recommend
>to get best possible large prints in, say, 12x10 or 16x12? Directly
>asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
>resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a good
>shareware software for upsampling?

Give the Qimage demo a try. Qimage has some of the best interpolation
routines around.
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage

----------
Ed Ruf Lifetime AMA# 344007 ()
See images taken with my CP-990/5700 & D70 at
http://edwardgruf.com/Digital_Photog...ral/index.html

"Jim" <> writes:

> As the images exist right now, it is unreasonable to expect good results
> from any picture larger than 5x7.
> You will be disappointed with the photos unless you increase the resolution
> by interpolation. You need about 200 dpi for any print of any size; hence
> you will need to double number of pixels in each dimension. I use
> Photoshop's bicubic interpolation, but I have not used it for that much of
> an increase. Hence, I cannot tell you that this is what you should use.
> Jim

I dunno, I get stunning 8x10 (150dpi) from my lowly Olympus C-2100UZ
(1600x1200) using commerical printers like mpix.com. The 11x16 prints (100dpi)
aren't bad either. My prints do start to break down at 16x20 (75dpi) for close
viewing but if the viewing distance is a few feet away it still looks good.
Yes, if you use a loupe you can probably see the loss of detail, but most
people tend to look at pictures with their eyes and not a magnifying glass.
Also, it depends on the camera, pictures from my other 2MP camera (Olympus
D-510Z) do start to break down at 8x10, but that is more a function of the
higher jpeg compression level that produces artifacts and the quality of the
lens. I don't bother with up-rezzing, since as far as I can tell, mpix does a
great job.

If you are up-rezzing for your own printer, a lot of people like Qimage:
http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/

--
Michael Meissner
email:
http://www.the-meissners.org

-=_AnTaNi_=- <> wrote in
news:8Yfze.130335$:

> During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
> Duane Reade shop.
>
> It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
> 1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
> any editing.
> Really smart.

Not to call you a liar or anything, but are you sure that you actually used
2560x1920? It is just that you asked for a simple backup of your files and
you claim that the shop went to a lot of trouble to edit everyone of your
files to a different size, I can't see why they would do this.

What camera is it, does it have an option for shooting in a lower
resolution like 1536x1152?

I just don't believe anyone would put themselves out so greatly to do
something like this, why would they do anything other than simply burn the
files to a CD? Any editing would have to take a noticeable amount of time
and it would not be easy to accidentally batch process a CD worth of
images.



--
Mark Heyes (New Zealand)
See my pics at www.gigatech.co.nz (last updated 25-June-05)
"There are 10 types of people, those that
understand binary and those that don't"

-=_AnTaNi_=- wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> already posted on rec.photo.digital.point+shoot but probably more
> appropriate here
>
> During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
> Duane Reade shop.
>
> It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
> 1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
> any editing.
> Really smart.
>
> Now the question: the images are below 2MP in size, but at least they
> hold a lot of information because are around 2MB in size each. The
> original images were almost of the same size. What would you recommend
> to get best possible large prints in, say, 12x10 or 16x12? Directly
> asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
> resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a
> good shareware software for upsampling?
>
> Thanks for any help

Sorry to hear of the problem.

Although I haven't tried this, my first approach would be to try and
exactly double the resolution from 1536x1152 to 3072 x 2304 using a good
interpolation algorithm (e.g. Smart Size in Paint Shop Pro 9). I don't
think you'll get much more data beyond that. See how well such an image
prints.....

Cheers,
David

> Directly asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
> resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a good
> shareware software for upsampling?
I personaly woudn't ask for direct printing in that size, algorithms builded
in most lab software generally math that from 'digital zoom' in most cameras


With interpolation either use some dedicated software (ie qimage of photo
zoom pro)
which has some of the best interpolation algorithms, or use interpolation
from
all purpose photo editing software (ie. photoshop, paint shop, gimp).

But beware - if you will try to use all purpose photo software do not try
doing
it in single step - to get some reasonable results you can try increase
resolution
by no more than 10% by single step - ie 1536x1152 then about 1690x1267 then
about 1859x1394 etc, and after that try slightly sharpen overall results.

But in any cases don't expect miracles.

Regards
Czeslaw Gryzik

> Not to call you a liar or anything, but are you sure that you actually used
> 2560x1920? It is just that you asked for a simple backup of your files and
> you claim that the shop went to a lot of trouble to edit everyone of your
> files to a different size, I can't see why they would do this.

Yes I am sure, and I have proof of that. I didn't delete all of the
photos from the backed up mem card, and I have just some photos in both
resolutions, one on the card, one on the Duane Reade CDs... simply Duane
Reade processed my photos instead of backing up. Clearly Duane Reade
operator I talked to didn't know the difference between a backup and a
processing, and/or the software they used is crap.

>
> What camera is it, does it have an option for shooting in a lower
> resolution like 1536x1152?
>

It's a MInolta A1. I alway shoot in highest resolution with "Fine" JPEG
compression, being able to store over 160 photos on a 512MB flash card.
I only shoot at 1280x960 when I use digital zoom (in this case only this
resolution can be used with A1).

> I just don't believe anyone would put themselves out so greatly to do
> something like this, why would they do anything other than simply burn the
> files to a CD? Any editing would have to take a noticeable amount of time
> and it would not be easy to accidentally batch process a CD worth of
> images.

It took a VERY noticeable amount of time, over than one hour. Indeed I
should have said "no, thanks, this is a rip-off".

But even if they process the JPG, it wouldn't be a big problem since the
source JPGs are very big and hold a lot of information. The problem is
that they shrink them to a lower resolution, and this is to me
unacceptable.
The operator always talked about COPY of the images to CD.

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:07:32 GMT, -=_AnTaNi_=-
<> wrote:

>already posted on rec.photo.digital.point+shoot but probably more
>appropriate here
>
>During my vacation in NY, I had my compact flash card backed up by a
>Duane Reade shop.
>
>It happened that they resized all of my images from 2560x1920 to
>1536x1152, although I asked explicitly for a simple backup and not for
>any editing.
>Really smart.
>
>Now the question: the images are below 2MP in size, but at least they
>hold a lot of information because are around 2MB in size each. The
>original images were almost of the same size. What would you recommend
>to get best possible large prints in, say, 12x10 or 16x12? Directly
>asking for printing in that size, or making the images of higher
>resolution by interpolation? In this latter case can you suggest a good
>shareware software for upsampling?

Sorry for you. That was really bad luck.

The reasoning about the information in the file size is wrong,
because the kind of information is different. The new files with
the lower resolution probably have more information about the
exact color of each pixel, but they still lack the information
that was once in the higher resolution, in the larger number of
pixels. There is no way to regain the latter.

I only know a few programs that do good upscaling, but the
cannot work miracles. One wears the word fractal in its name,
the other is Extensis pxl SmartScale. The latter can redraw
high-contrast edges smoothly in a higher resolution, which
sometimes, but not always, looks good.

You won't find any freeware program that can do any of this. The
best that freeware can do is the Lanczos filter in IrfanView,
which you could try. But many printer drivers already contain
similar algorithms, for example the Photo Optimizer PRO in newer
Canon printer drivers works similar to Extensis pxl SmartScale
and redraws edges while printing. I just printed a 2 Megapixel
aerial photo with this option, and in this case the result is
good, as there are lots of edges on buildings that now almost
look as if they had been taken with a 20 Megapixel camera.

Hans-Georg

--
No mail, please.

-=_AnTaNi_=- <> wrote in
news:b2Qze.51270$:

>> I just don't believe anyone would put themselves out so greatly to do
>> something like this, why would they do anything other than simply
>> burn the files to a CD? Any editing would have to take a noticeable
>> amount of time and it would not be easy to accidentally batch process
>> a CD worth of images.
>
> It took a VERY noticeable amount of time, over than one hour. Indeed I
> should have said "no, thanks, this is a rip-off".

Incredible! Sometimes I wonder at the range and depth of human stupidity.

Next time, if someone takes more than 10 minutes to back up a card to CD,
enquire as to why it is taking so long to simply burn some files. And
don't erase the card until you have checked the contents of the CD.


--
Mark Heyes (New Zealand)
See my pics at www.gigatech.co.nz (last updated 25-June-05)
"There are 10 types of people, those that
understand binary and those that don't"