# More On Image Manipulation Software



## Silver Hawk (Dec 2, 2003)

This is becoming my pet hate














and I know we covered it here but I want to have another rant...







and, in any case, the Forum seems a bit quiet lately









<rant>

Took some photos of my car (for eBay







) using my Canon G6, transferred to PC and used The Gimp to re-size. I had to re-size because I had too high resolution and too low compression selected on the camera.

Here is the number plate before any re-sizing on PC:










After resizing with no Interpolation:










After resizing with Cubic Interpolation:










I guess I'm still disappointed with current software and their algorithms; I expected more







. It seems they really cannot cope very well with straight lines that are not in the true vertical or horizontal planes....you end up with a jagged edge (great film, by-the-way







) ... even when using Cubic interpolation

So I stand by my original observation that you should endevour to set your camera's resolution to match the final picture size. I'm not sure why I bought a 7.1 meg camera --- 99.9% of the time, I would have been better of with a 3.0 meg one









</rant>

Over to you, Stan and PG!
















Cheers

Paul


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## USEDMODEL (Mar 26, 2005)

* Glad that you were able to have a RANT*

..........everyone deserves a RANT, I just don't

have a clue what you are on about...........sorry.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

I have to agree Paul, though I'm not a graphics pro and not conversant with the abilities of all the manipulation programmes available.

Taking pictures at the size you _know_ it will be used at is not always easy. I tend to take on the best setting available to ensure the the image can be printed to a large size if I need it to be. I may only use the image for web use but I can't be certain that is the only requirement when I take the picture.

I am then reliant on manipulation software to resize the image for web work. Until more competant software is available we seem to be in a catch 22 situation.

I've used the Gimp, Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop and they all seem similar in their capabilities in this area.

Does anyone know of a programme that can resize pictures more capably than those I've used so far?


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## Silver Hawk (Dec 2, 2003)

This is *not* my weekly rant on image reduction issues









I've switched to using Ulead's PhotoImpact 10.









Although I respect the open source The Gimp and its many options, I really found its user interface appauling









Microsoft's Picture-It, which I'd been using for years, ran out of steam when it came to specifiying different image reduction algorithms









I can't justify the cost of Photoshop and although I've not seen Paint Shop Pro for at least 5 years, I think I had the same user interface issues I'm now having with The Gimp









PhotoImpact 8 is available free; I tried it, liked what I saw, so paid the Â£19 to upgrade to PhotoImpact 10. In truth, there is not a lot of difference between version 8 and 10 (I've no idea what happened to version 9







).

Cheers

Paul


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

I know exactly what you mean Paul. Many of my PaintShop Pro manipulated watch pics show very jagged hands for the same reason. I'm not really into graphics but my latest technique is to insert a picture into MS PowerPoint (of all things!) capture it to PaintShop Pro and then sharpen it up a bit.

I had planned to thoroughly investigate the whole graphics thing upon buying myself a decent camera (I still fully intend to buy a Nikon D70) but as I've just had to buy a new Domain Controller that's my budget gone for a couple of months









I think megapixels are very overrated as a measure of "quality".


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## Roger (May 17, 2003)

> I think megapixels are very overrated as a measure of "quality".


I tend to agree, but only to a degree................................I feel you really have to decide what size your ultimate print is likely to be.

For example, if all you want or need are 6X4 or 7X5 then 6 Mp is overkill.

I strongly feel that lens quality is more important....some "budget" cameras I have seen and used recently, had lenses little better than the bottoms of milk bottles.

Roger


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## Nalu (Nov 28, 2003)

rhaythorne said:


> I think megapixels are very overrated as a measure of "quality".
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ming Thein over at TZ-UK would agree with you. He recently posted some images demonstrating how his DSLR bests a newer digicam which has more Mp.


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## Silver Hawk (Dec 2, 2003)

Silver Hawk said:


> I'm not sure why I bought a 7.1 meg camera --- 99.9% of the time, I would have been better of with a 3.0 meg one
> 
> 
> 
> ...





rhaythorne said:


> I think megapixels are very overrated as a measure of "quality".
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmmm...seems like we're all in agreement....









Unless you're planning to generate poster size prints, huge numbers of pixels is a waste of time....no, worse than that, its actually potentially disruptive to your final print quality. A marketing ploy me thinks







like car engine sizes when stuck in a queue on the M25


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

The pixel count business has become a marketing issue for the camera makerâ€™s. More being better, or thatâ€™s the theory.

It isnâ€™t strictly true, however, an older Olympus that has a resolution of 2mp will turn out much better pictures than a camera of similar resolution available today due to the quality of lens fitted to (what was) an expensive camera. Digital camera lenses have improved a little but not as much as the electronics and firmware implementation. What lens improvements there have been are only evident in â€œbetterâ€ cameras so far.

Weâ€™ve all seen the 6mp ******* cameras for Â£50 in the local supermarket ads, how good can the lenses be?

It seems we still need to get a good camera, not just for the resolution of the image sensor but for all the other components that make a camera a good one.

Perhaps a good Nikon, Olympus, Canon etc, from a couple of years ago is a viable option for the watch photographer interested in web work?

I've always thought Derek's (Luvwatch) pictures were of good quality, certainly better than mine.

Derek, what do you use and what post production do you get up to?


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