My out of the camera shots are usually in the 2000+ KB size range and always 2560 x 1712 dimensions. They look great on screen and in print. But, by the time I size and shrink them for the challenge, they really look bad. Am I doing something wrong? Are there tricks I need to learn? Or is this just part of the deal? I am very new to digital photography.
First and foremost, shots that depend on their their razor-sharpness at full resolution for their "wow" factor will inevitably fall flat when reduced to the 640-px maximum DPC size. Fact of life. When choosing a photo for DPC, the detail of interest must be coarse enough to still be rendered at the intended final size. A very sharp original still helps though, since soft detail in the original translates to muddy, low-contrast detail in the final image.
Try resizng in steps of 10% or so, and at the end of the process apply a bit of gentle sharpening again. If you're using Photoshop CS, try resizing using the "bicubic sharper" to retain as much detail as possible; you can usually resize in a single step then.
When saving intermediate results, use a lossless format , e.g. TIFF, if you are closing and reopening several times during editing. At final step, save for web near the max. allowed file size (150kB, or 153,600 bytes).
Photoshop and Elements use Save as Web. This thread should help.
I followed this idea once, but the final result had the EXIF data stripped away. I though that was a no-no in the rules so did not go any further. Was my interpretation wrong? Do you only need the EXIF data on your original on the chance that it is DQ'd or is it required on the submitted photo also?
Your original and your entered image are usually different. Just keep the original w/ your data, so you'll be able to show it if you need to. I don't think you need the data in your entered image. Unless I've been doing it wrong too.. haha
No need to retain EXIF data for the entry. I use the "save for web" feature for all my entries, no poblema. Do need the original however, if there's a DQ request.
Avoid PSP for resizing,JPG compression dosn't work well,try finding ARCSoft or Photoshop/PhotoDeluxe and watch JPEG compression to be closer to 100 % as much as possible !
Avoid PSP for resizing,JPG compression dosn't work well,try finding ARCSoft or Photoshop/PhotoDeluxe and watch JPEG compression to be closer to 100 % as much as possible !
I always thought there was more control over .jpg compression in PSP because of being able to choose on a scale of 1-100 the amount of compression applied vs. Photoshop on a scale of 1-12.
Avoid PSP for resizing,JPG compression dosn't work well,try finding ARCSoft or Photoshop/PhotoDeluxe and watch JPEG compression to be closer to 100 % as much as possible !
I always thought there was more control over .jpg compression in PSP because of being able to choose on a scale of 1-100 the amount of compression applied vs. Photoshop on a scale of 1-12.
When you SAVE_AS in PSP there is no compression option.
