A few images

LMC54 said:

I have different schemes for different types of images. All depends
on how much aliaising is present, for example: Bricks on a building
or fine horizontal or veritcal lines, they require a very mild
blurring. If you see no fine lines that you want to bring out then
a slight sharpening before reduction, very slight.

But the basic secret to what I do is step reduction. In other
words, Reduce your images slowly in 200 pixel increments, until the
desired size. I like mine to be 800 pixels across at the widest
side. If you reduce all at once. details will be lost and weird
aliasing happens and becomes rather mushy. After sizing, copy the
image into a new layer then apply a very heavy sharpening on the
top layer (USM set at Radius 0.8 and threshold 0 an amount of 186%
is fine). Goto the transparency slider on the sharpening layer and
reduce opacity to desired look. To touch things up, use the eraser
tool to remove large areas where the sharpening created noises that
you don't like, such as the sky or reduntant areas. After that I
decrease the eraser tool to a small size and change the "Flow" not
the "Opacity" of the eraser to about 8% and remove halos or hard
edges very gentle, since the eraser is at 8% "Flow" you can keep
going over the edges to your taste. Once you complete your work,
flatten the layers.

I also work in 16bt color to broaden the color gamut of the RAW, if
you do that make sure you convert back to 8bit to save as a jpeg.
This is just one way of doing things but seems to work well for
Sigma images or images of high resolution. Since all images are
different you must deviate from my technique and instinctively do
things that you feel is needed.

Click to expand...

ole thofte said:

LMC54 said:

I have different schemes for different types of images. All depends
on how much aliaising is present, for example: Bricks on a building
or fine horizontal or veritcal lines, they require a very mild
blurring. If you see no fine lines that you want to bring out then
a slight sharpening before reduction, very slight.

But the basic secret to what I do is step reduction. In other
words, Reduce your images slowly in 200 pixel increments, until the
desired size. I like mine to be 800 pixels across at the widest
side. If you reduce all at once. details will be lost and weird
aliasing happens and becomes rather mushy. After sizing, copy the
image into a new layer then apply a very heavy sharpening on the
top layer (USM set at Radius 0.8 and threshold 0 an amount of 186%
is fine). Goto the transparency slider on the sharpening layer and
reduce opacity to desired look. To touch things up, use the eraser
tool to remove large areas where the sharpening created noises that
you don't like, such as the sky or reduntant areas. After that I
decrease the eraser tool to a small size and change the "Flow" not
the "Opacity" of the eraser to about 8% and remove halos or hard
edges very gentle, since the eraser is at 8% "Flow" you can keep
going over the edges to your taste. Once you complete your work,
flatten the layers.

I also work in 16bt color to broaden the color gamut of the RAW, if
you do that make sure you convert back to 8bit to save as a jpeg.
This is just one way of doing things but seems to work well for
Sigma images or images of high resolution. Since all images are
different you must deviate from my technique and instinctively do
things that you feel is needed.

Click to expand...

...Larry, what an elaborate way! I basically develop in SPP (trying
out Lightroom at the moment) to full size jpg and then bang reduce
the photos to 800x576 (?) or maybe a little larger for pbase in
Irfanview. Dust removal ( when really necessary) is done with
Polaroid dustremover, that removes it all in one step. Basically I
don't like PS, because it's too complecated .... Well, I guess I'm
just in another league and certainly it's not higher, but I'm
willing to learn some more I will remember that about stepwise
reduction in size. As for the rest I don't know. ... Wonder what
Tom has to say

Ole
--
http://www.pbase.com/thofte

Click to expand...

ole thofte said:

You're real fast. -don't get me wrong. I find it real interesting
to hear about your methods - even if I'm not going to use these
myself. I could be inspired though. And tom was right in noticing
that your picture looks unusually good in reduced size. The action
would be interesting, but maybe it's just for PS. I've had
PSactions work in Irfanview before...

Ole
--
http://www.pbase.com/thofte

Click to expand...

Arvi said:

Larry,
These are beautiful images.... and thanks for the details on how
you downsize images. This is exactly something I have been looking
for and will certainly give it a spin. Would it be possible to
create an action to simplify the workflow?

Click to expand...

LMC54 said:

Here is a a quick general purpose Action for Sigma images to get
things ready for the web. Best not to do any sharpening at start
and it is setup to use the hotkey f12. And make sure your images
are in landscape oreintation and not portrait before starting. You
can always rotate after it's done. Final output is 800 pixels at
the horizontal. I don't know if this action will work with versions
earlier than CS2. Anyways I hope it helps some people out. If you
need to reduce further than 800 pixels then do so after action.
Larry Carter

http://www.nevasgraphics.com/images/Sigma.atn

Click to expand...