Image size / best all around ?

[Puppy]

What image size is best to use for digital pics ?

I bought an Olympus SW 720...and the default setting makes the pics so big, it does not fit on the computer screen.

Is there one setting that would be good for printing photos and computer....so I do not have to be changing it all around while hiking ?

ALso image quality...it has lots of choices ( SHQ, HQ, SQ1, SQ2)....all have their own specialty it seems...but can I just pick one and have it work good for both computer and prints ?

Yes - I am not technology oriented, that I already know.

Thanks!

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

Unfortunately, you need at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) resolution for printing out pics and that makes all but the tiniest pics too big for a computer screen. I resize my digital pics down to 600 x 800 for posting on a computer

[Puppy]

Do you do the resizing on the camera when you take the picture - or take it big and somehow downsize it on the computer ?

Thanks

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

I use the computer - do you have a program that helps you make photos lighter or darker or lets you crop photos? If so, what is the program called and I will see if I can find out how to make images smaller with that program.

[Footslogger]

Do you do the resizing on the camera when you take the picture - or take it big and somehow downsize it on the computer ?

Thanks

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Take a look at the free program called Picasa from Google. Very easy to use and allows you to size-down photos as part of the "export" process.

I use PhotoShop Elements for my really large shots, mainly because I generally creat large (8 x 10 and up) prints and want more editing capabilities.

But Picasa, or something like it, is all you need to re-size digital photos for things like website uploading and attaching to e-mail.

'Slogger

[berninbush]

I know very little about cameras but I did have one design class that helped me understand the whole "resolution" thing... Let me see if I can explain it. Anyone who knows more than I do, please feel free to correct me.

All pictures-- on computer screens, or printed out on paper-- are made up of lots and lots of tiny dots of color. The dots are so close together that your eye perceives them as a continuous image. The denser the dots are, the better the "quality" of the image. The less dense they are, the more likely your eye is to reject the illusion that they are continuous; this makes the image look "grainy."

But the "dots" on a computer screen are like extremely tiny glowing light bulbs. Their density is fixed, depending on the resolution setting of your screen, so if you have a high-res camera image (with lots and lots of dots) on the computer screen it just appears really big (because the screen dots can't move closer together). The image looks ok on the screen, not grainy, because the dots made of light do better than dots made of ink on the paper at fooling your eye. Thus, a low-resolution image works better on a computer screen because you want it all to fit on the screen and you don't NEED the higher resolution to make it look good.

When you print it on paper, it's a whole different story. Ink dots don't fool the eye as well, but you can put them very close together indeed. So a high-resolution picture gets "denser" rather than "larger."

I think I remember that a typical on-screen pic is 75 dpi; as FD said, a printed picture needs to be a minimum of 300 dpi (and is better at 600 dpi).

One thing to remember: if you take a picture at higher resolution, you can always re-size it to lower-- but if you take it at lower resolution, you can't go back and make it higher.

[Puppy]

I wanted to post the digital ones on Trailjournals from towns if that is possible....I got a little thumb-drive looking device that you slide the picture card into and it goes right into a computer...... But my Mom does not 'do' computers, so I wanted to mail her printed out pictures.

Also - at home I have microsoft office....it says it has a photoediter on it. Plus Olympus sent me a CD with Olympus Master.

Boy - I am pitiful !

Thanks for any help.

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

Olympus Master software has a resize button that is easy to use. I rarely use that software package so I don't remember exactly where it is or how it works.

Any Olympus users out there that can help?

[Fiddler]

Go to www.download.com for a ton of shareware and freeware programs for photography and just about anything else. Also check www.oldversion.com/ for older versions of commercial software, including photo apps, that has been released to the public domain (meaning free and legal).

[budforester]

I use the MS Office Picture Manager sometimes. It is the default that opens when I double- click on a jpg image file. It is pretty straightforward and has edit features that let you crop, resize, compress. If Mom has access to a computer, she might be willing to try:
1. Turn it on
2. View your online photo album
3. Turn it off.

I wanted to post the digital ones on Trailjournals from towns if that is possible....I got a little thumb-drive looking device that you slide the picture card into and it goes right into a computer...... But my Mom does not 'do' computers, so I wanted to mail her printed out pictures.

Also - at home I have microsoft office....it says it has a photoediter on it. Plus Olympus sent me a CD with Olympus Master.

Boy - I am pitiful !

Thanks for any help.

[Blissful]

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Take a look at the free program called Picasa from Google. Very easy to use and allows you to size-down photos as part of the "export" process.

'Slogger

I used Picasa to upload a slide show to my hiking blog. I'm showing slides right now of the GA start nearly a year ago (already!). Of course it took me a while, but it worked fine once I got the hang of it.

[Feral Bill]

I:

Take all pictures in best quality

Edit these as needed and save them under a slightly different name, such as
Big Bad Bear b

Leave the original as taken, for future changes if wanted.

Since JPEG images degrade slightly with each edit it is especially important to keep an original copy.

[budforester]

I used Picasa to upload a slide show to my hiking blog. I'm showing slides right now of the GA start nearly a year ago (already!). Of course it took me a while, but it worked fine once I got the hang of it.

Wow, I need one of those on my blog!

Thanks

[Nearly Normal]

I have an olympus stylus 600 and it takes pretty good pics. I'm not crazy about the software included. I use picasa for transfer.
You really need to play with this camera and all the settings. Sometimes I take several shots under different light and general settings and still can't get what I want.
You'll notice the higher quality the less shots.
The camera does surprise me sometimes with great shots even at less quality settings.
You really can't tell what you have by the LCD.
The right light and steadiness of hand do tell.
I bought it because of the weather proof feature just for backpacking.

[STEVEM]

Do you do the resizing on the camera when you take the picture - or take it big and somehow downsize it on the computer ?

Thanks

I asked the very same question not too long ago and got lots of good advise:

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?t=31064

I decided to use the download referenced in post #7 of the above thread. Works great for me.

[rafe]

You need a simple image browser (eg. XnView, which is free) that will resize your images for display on the screen. The original image files (from the camera) aren't affected -- the resizing is done in your computer's memory, and is simply for viewing. Any decent digicam these days produces images that are substantially larger than the best high-resolution screens. It's not a problem -- you just need a proper image viewer. Picasa, XnView, IrfanView, ACDSee -- any one of these will do fine.