Why are my imported pictures fuzzy or blurry?

I can't explain what has changed in Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXpress, MS-Word, or Bean because I don't use any of those programs on the Mac platform.

In any case, I can easily explain why your small images look blurred:

Resizing them so drastically smaller, you discard about 70% of the original image resolution by going from 30"x40" at 72dpi to 2"x3" at 300 dpi.

Your original images:

30" x 72 dpi = 2160 pixels

40" x 72 dpi = 2880 pixels

Your converted images:

2" at 300 dpi = 600 pixels 27.7% of the original pixels, a 72.3% loss of "detail"

3" at 300 dpi = 900 pixels 31.5% of the original pixels, a 68.5% loss of "detail"

Some possible work-arounds (using doubles and halves):

1) If you want the same apparent resolution at 300 dpi, you need to make the 300 dpi images larger:

Divide original pixels by 300 (dpi) to get an equivalent size at 300 dpi, but now images are over 3 times larger than your 2" x 3" size requirement.

2160/300 = 7.2"

2880/300 = 9.6"

2) Divide by 600 dpi, and we're closer, but still about double your size requirement.

2160/600 = 3.6"

2880/600 = 4.8

3) If you want the same apparent resolution near the size 2" x 3", increase the resolution to 1200 dpi

Divide by 1200dpi, and we're just under your 2" x 3", but these images still retain detail when viewed just slightly larger.

2160/1200 = 1.8"

2880/1200 = 2.4"

Another alternative that sacrifices some quality. but not as much:

If you want to compromise quality a bit and still use the 2" x 3" image size, try 600 dpi. It won't be as sharp as the original, but might be an acceptable compromise because you're keeping more than half of the original resolution. It depends quite a bit upon the subject matter. Intricate landscapes usually look better at lower resolution than dramatic headshots where the loss of those intermediate shades makes pixelization so obvious.

2" x 600 dpi = 1200 pixels, 45% loss, 55% of original

3" x 600 dpi = 1800 pixels 37.5% loss, 62.5% of original

And finally if you simply must have BOTH 2" x 3" and original resolution, here are the exact numbers:

2160/2" = 1080 dpi

2880/3" = 960 dpi

This discussion does not speak to the file sizes of the resized images, nor the maximum output resolution capabilities of your viewing and printing devices.

Can you import them at full resolution and then downsize/resize in Quark or InDesign?

Have you upgraded any of your software?

I would rather not confused the OP further, but I am a graphics professional and Photoshop Guru ( part-time, now) and I can say for sure that you are wrong about how to treat digital images.

Forget all those formulas you just put up.

A good example are digital images from digital cameras.

Typically, common digital cameras will shoot an image as a rather large size jpeg file ( say something like what the OP describes...40"x 60" image at 72 dpi, Photoshop will automatically change its dimensions to a smaller image size at the print standard of 300 DPI and will keep the clarity of the image by "COMPRESSING" pixels, NOT throwing pixels away! Even iPhoto treats images in a similar fashion

If you continue to reduce the size of an image at the 300 DPI resolution the pixels will compress even further and you still retain a crisp and clear image.

The only time images can get blurry if if you start off with with a low resolution 72 DPi Jpeg and resize the image upwards.

This is because there is no additonal pixels in the image to "fill in the spaces where pixels are missing" in the low res image.

Even with a higher resolution image of 300 DPI, you can only resize the image up a specific amount (without using image resampling/interpolation) because it will start to get blurry too as a result of not having enough additonal pixels/pixel information.

I am not sure why the OP is having trouble importing images into their layout programs.

The OP SHOULD be reducing the images in Photoshop or other image editing app and NOT doing this in OS X Preview.

In older versions of page layout programs like Quark Xpress (and Adobe InDesign, which I use) there might be a preference to set the quality of the imported image OR an option to place the actual image into the layout program or to place a lower resolution place holder image as both Indesign and Quark Xpress had/have tools to link images to a file instead of importing the full resolution image into the page layout program to keep the file size of the page application file down in overall size.

I am not sure why the OP is having trouble importing images into their layout programs.

The OP SHOULD be reducing the images in Photoshop or other image editing app and NOT doing this in OS X Preview.

In older versions of page layout programs like Quark Xpress (and Adobe InDesign (CS3) which I use) there might be a preference to set the quality of the imported image OR an option to place the actual image full resolution image into the layout program or to place a lower resolution place holder image as both InDesign and Quark Xpress had/have tools to link images to the original file instead of importing the full resolution image into the page layout program to keep the file size of the page application file down in overall size.

You might be placing place holding linked images into Quark Xpress instead of importing the full resolution image.

Also, if it is a place holding linked version of the image, there maybe an Xpress preference to display the linked image at a higher, but not full image resolution.

Also, make sure the jpeg images you are initially using are large in size so you have enough pixel data to work with when you change the size down in Photoshop by changing to 300 DPI when you first open the image before doing any other image editing or manipulation.

If your jpeg images are already small or medium sized and are still low res (72 DPI or less), there is very little data left in the image and amount of resizing up OR down will make these images any sharper.

The only way to "salvage" these types of images, If you are reducing low res jpeg images, you need to do this using Photoshop's image resampling feature to do this to have Photoshop add additonal (interpolated)pixels to your images.

When using resampling, it is best to resample (either up OR down) in incremental steps to minimize the interpolation (randomizing) of pixels by reducing or increasing to the final size of the image in one pass.

Slight Corrections to my previous thread post.

Also, make sure the jpeg images you are initially using are large in size and file size ( a jpeg image from a digital camera, for example should be, say initially 10-15 MB in data size or greater depending on your digital camera and how many megapixels it captures) so you have enough pixel data to work with when you change the size down in Photoshop by changing to 300 DPI when you first open the image before doing any other image editing or manipulation.

If your jpeg images are already small or medium sized and are still low res (72 DPI or less) and only a couple of MBs or less in data size, there is very little data left in the image and no amount of resizing up OR down will make these images any sharper.

The only way to "salvage" these types of images, If you are reducing low res jpeg images, to give these low res images more pixel data and thus, make them "less blurry", you need to do this using Photoshop's image resampling feature to do this to have Photoshop add additonal (interpolated)pixels to your images.

When using resampling, it is best to resample (either up OR down) in incremental steps to minimize the interpolation artifacts (randomizing) of pixels that reducing or increasing to the final size of the image in one pass can do.

You can't always count on OS X Preview app or Quick Look to give you an accurate view of an image.

I noticed since OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, that the Preview app now will always, automatically show an image in anti-aliased mode unless you make certain adjustments under Preview's Preferences menu option, under the Image tab.

A completely anti-aliases image will give you a false look to image making its pixels smoother (just like when you use anti-aliased text).

Before OS X Snow Leopard, all other older OS X versions of Preview gave you EXACTLY what the image looked like a would accurately show you if an image was low resolution or not as anti-aliasing was always turned off.

This changed for all OS X versions of OS X after OS X 10.5 Leopard.

So, new and newer versions of OS X Preview, by default, DO NOT show and accurate version of the image you want to check in Preview.

I am not sure what options you need to check to get the old way Preview used to work, but this should be easy to play with and figure out if you open a low res image file.

I feel it is always best to use Photoshop to check the resolution of any image than just, solely, rely on OS X's Preview app.

Hi Lottie

Lottiey wrote:

I can’t import them at full resolution because Quark will only let me scale them down to 10%, which is not small enough for what I need.

Which version of QuarkXPress are you using? QuarkXPress 10 can scale images down to 0.1%, though that is not recommended. With previous versions of QuarkXPress you can do the same by using the Scale palette.

Also, QuarkXPress 10 doesn't show you proxy images anymore, it shows you the image in its native resolution suited for your screen resolution, so you'll probably see a much better quality than in previous versions (versions 6 to 9 feature the lores/hires preview).

Thanks

Matthias

Hi Lottiey,

I am afraid Scale palette was only introduced in QuarkXPress 8, please see here:

http://www.planetquark.com/2010/11/08/scale-pictures-smaller-than-10-in-quarkxpr ess/

Regards
Matthias

MichelPM wrote:

Photoshop will automatically change its dimensions to a smaller image size at the print standard of 300 DPI and will keep the clarity of the image by "COMPRESSING" pixels, NOT throwing pixels away! …If you continue to reduce the size of an image at the 300 DPI resolution the pixels will compress even further and you still retain a crisp and clear image

I wasn't talking about .psd files, I was talking about .jpg and jpg is a lossy compression algorithm, which does indeed 'throw away' some original information that cannot be recovered once an image is compressed and saved. http://www.answers.com/topic/lossy-compression

I use the entire Adobe CS3 .

I have never experienced this image issue InDesign CS3, either.

You need to make sure you are using images that contain enough pixel info/data in them.

Forgive my assumption here,if I am mistaken, but it seems you do not completely know how to properly work with digital images?

Especially Jpeg files.

Also, to elimate taking even more pixel data and resolution out of digital images never, EVER take or edit a jpeg image that maybe already has a reduction in pixel data and, therefore, lower resolution and resave those types of images, again as a jpeg.

Every time you take a jpeg image and resave it as a jpeg, you further strip pixel data out of the image further degrading its resolution.