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My photos of my cards look so sharp in Photoshop, but then...
I upload them and they look blurry.
It's driving me crazy. I put a six-shots-per-card limit on myself, to try to get the crazy under control. Six shots and pick the best one, this isn't an audition for a job as a photographer. (Not that I am a photographer by any stretch.)
But lately I've been exceeding my limit. An hour spent taking pictures of a card? This woman has lost her mind.
But if only I knew why my sharp images got all soft when I uploaded them and whether I could do anything about that or not. If I can, I want to. If I can't, I can let go of the crazy.
Anyone have any thoughts?
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Okay. I know we had this convo once before. I tried bigger and it didn't seem to help. But maybe I'll try bigger and .png. I have been saving as .jpeg.
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Made it bigger (650 wide) and .png. Is it better? It still is losing something in translation. I saved the .png with least compression. I didn't know about the interlaced/interleaved thing. I'm new to .png.
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Thanks for checking it out! I wonder if it's my display? It just looks so much sharper in Photoshop. And I have a Mac with a retina display, so I would think it would make everything look sharp.
Yeah, high-quality problem, I know. ;)!
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Thanks for checking it out! I wonder if it's my display? It just looks so much sharper in Photoshop. And I have a Mac with a retina display, so I would think it would make everything look sharp.
Yeah, high-quality problem, I know. ;)!
It might be my eye sight but it looks sharp to me lol!
It looked fine to me when I saw it earlier, Robin - and I was on my big PC screen, not just my phone ;-) But I know what you mean, sometimes I am sure mine look sharper before I upload them . I've now added a setting to my camera to take somewhat smaller pictures so that I don't have to change the size so much, I think that is helping a little. And I have always been a fan of png as a format, it's less lossy than jpg. I save with my larger dimension as 1000 pixels.
Well, if nothing else, I've learned about png and using larger files. Good to know, I've always saved to jpeg. I thought everyone did.
It probably makes sense (to someone with more knowledge than I have) that something in Photoshop on my computer is going to look different from the same image uploaded and filtering through the internet.
Thanks, all. This has been a help.
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Rachel, your card looks great to me. Of course, this is spoken by someone who uses a printer all-in-one to scan her cards. I'm envious of you guys who take such lovely pictures to post.
__________________ Bugga in OK
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." Dalai Lama
Thanks, Bugga. But don't envy me. You're the one who has the skillful attitude. You're not the one who spent two hours taking pictures of a card this morning, when the very first shot would have sufficed to give anyone who cared to look a completely reasonable idea of what the card looked like! ;)!
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
I looked at your card a bit ago and it looks just fine to me! I generally take ONE photo, do a bit of crop-and-enhance, and upload. The only time I re-take a shot is if I overlooked a wonky ribbon tail or something. Good enough is good enough, and I agree that "a completely reasonable idea of what the card looks like" is all we need to shoot for, lol.
I think your cards are beautiful! I do feel the same about my uploads too, thinking we all do when viewing our own. I've had more luck with taking pics in natural sunlight. I recently purchased a cheap light box, but find it is a little too small to get a decent shot. I do think having the original in front of us makes any pic pale online, but wondering how some pics like on Pinterest look go good. I'm thinking they have some kind of software on Pinterest that enhances them upon upload.
They all look great to me! Beautiful designs too, Rachael. I am looking at them on a MacBook Pro but they look fine on my husband's Windows laptop too.
Thanks, Sue, Anne and Cathy, for looking. I think I have unreasonable expectations (which wouldn't be the first time, in general) about them looking exactly like they do in Photoshop. There is going to be a difference between something you are working on that is in a program native to your computer and something coming through the additional filter of the internet.
I feel better. And I admire you, Sue. One picture. I was doing okay with six, and then I had a fit of WHY? and drove myself crazy (again, not the first time). The whole picture taking thing is something wish I had room to set up and leave up. But I have to clear my table and move lights and get out the tripod, etc. every time.
But now I'm ranting (not the first time).
Let's leave it at: thank you, all. I feel a lot better. And I will be working with bigger files and the png format in the future. ;)!
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Thanks for checking it out! I wonder if it's my display? It just looks so much sharper in Photoshop.
It's worth checking whether your web browser is applying magnification. Not sure what Safari's indication would look like (assuming you're using Safari on your Mac) but I've done a screen shot of Firefox in case it helps you or anybody else - red circle round the bit showing the browser is set at 133%. To reset it to 100%, I'd just click where that number is.
Magnification can be useful for reading as it makes text bigger but it often seems to have the effect of making images look kind of "flabby" - so it would look fine when you edit in Photoshop but then looking at it in your web browser would be different.
I do have my display resolution set above(below?) the native setting to make things a bit bigger. I've not reset anything in Safari, but maybe because it's an across-the-board display setting, it affects how things look in the browser.
Flabby is a good word, Joanne. To me the images look flabby. I guess the test would be to reset the display to the native setting and look again. Maybe I'll do that.
Thanks!
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
Not sure if this helps, but the lower the screen resolution the larger items will appear.
We were taught that to show items for a retina display, you had to save it at twice the regular size -- so if the picture is normally 600 pixels wide, it should be 1200 pixels wide.
In an ideal world you save two versions of the image -- regular size and 2x size. Then you write code to swap out the images based on the users monitor.
You may already know this, but there used to be a feature in photoshop called save to web.
You could play with the settings and get a preview of the final results. You can even zoom in to see just how pixelated the edges of an image are. I think this is still available as "Legacy Save to Web." If not, there's a new version of the same thing, although I can't remember the name.
__________________ Elizabeth in Hoboken, proud parent of a feisty and mischievous parrot who likes to chew craft supplies
It seems to only look "flabby" (That word was so spot on, Joanne) through Safari. I have a retina display, but in Photoshop it looks perfectly sharp.
I don't know about the save to web feature. I will check it out. Although, again, people keep telling me my pictures look sharp. And I've got my resolution set to that text is larger.
__________________ I have come to the conclusion that buying craft supplies and actually using them are two separate hobbies. RachelRose Designs by Robin... GALLERY
It seems to only look "flabby" (That word was so spot on, Joanne) through Safari. I have a retina display, but in Photoshop it looks perfectly sharp.
That's why I was looking for a browser-based solution rather than one that would be affecting your computer as a whole. It would also explain the difference between what you're seeing and the fact others are reporting seeing your images as sharp.
The problem is that they are too small, must contain minimum width of 650. Plus u can to use wider versions like .png > .jpg. In general, I had not encountered this problem, only when I started to edit my photos and use erase background online. After using them, the photo format gets bigger. The storage in some applications was too big, so I used the trick of increasing the picture's surface, and it worked. Now I'm just working with this trick, and it goes anywhere where I use it. Did you guys try?
My photos of my cards look so sharp in Photoshop, but then...
