help .

cherokee · 02-01-2007, 23:51

Right I know nothing about photography but since i got my new pc i thought id try using it to play around with some pics , now when i downloaded them from camera or from email they all came through full size but when i try to open them up all i seem to get are thumbnails and cant get them to fit my screen without bluring .
Im currently using windows picture and fax viewer .

Is it just the way my pics download or is there a way i can get them back to full size ...ive tried everything today but to no avail ...
has anyone any ideas ...cheers

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 07:23

Once you've shrunk them they stay shrunk.

That's because a digital pic is made up of pixels, individual little squares. The bigger the pic the more little squares it has in it and the sharper it looks. You can view it at say 20% of the original and no squares are apparent. View it at 500% and you'll see the squares. Now the problem arises that if you SHRINK the pic to 20% you haven't reduced the size of the pixels, you've reduced the number of pixels and once that has been done, and saved as such, you can never get back those lost pixels.

So, the answer you need is to find out how you have been saving your images to your PC to have caused the shrinkage.

entwisi · 03-01-2007, 07:25

Can you give us a bit more info. what make/model of camera. Are you using the supplied driver or some other method (Card reader). You mention email.... please expand what you mean by that. emails from others with pictures embedded or something else.

It could be that your camera is downloading both a full size image and a thumbnail and you are opening the wrong one. One way to tell is to let us know the filesize of the image you are opening. (Right click - properties)

Windows Picture/fax viewer is rubbish. you ideally want a proper photo editor. There are loads , I use The Gimp. its freeware so no 'dodgy software involved. and is extremly powerful in what it can do.

To install it there are 2/3 packages you need.

Do this first
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gim....6-1-setup.zip

then this

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gim...86-setup-1.zip

If you want the help files (probably recommended if you are very new to playing with images) then install this as well

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gim...0.11-setup.zip

There are loads of tutorials for GIMP on the net.http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ is one good starting point but there are loads more for when you get more advanced.

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 07:33

Here's an original sized image:

Here's the same image viewed at 20% as in a thumbnail:

Now here's the image shrunk to 20% which looks just the same:

But when you try to enlarge that back to the original size all you get are enlarged pixels (resulting in blurred image):

entwisi · 03-01-2007, 07:50

heh willow, I know what you are saying but technically its not 'blurred', its pixelated

From the OP I'm not sure Cherokee is opening a full sized image. We need to be sure that that is the case. However Windows Picture viewer does need binning no matter what

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by entwisi

heh willow, I know what you are saying but technically its not 'blurred', its pixelated

I know that Ian

I am referring to the fact that Cherokee used the term "bluring" in the opening post (not being familiar with digital photography probably also means not familiar with terms such as pixelated) and was attempting to explain in simple terms how such "bluring" occurs.

Quote:

From the OP I'm not sure Cherokee is opening a full sized image. We need to be sure that that is the case.

Yep, that's why I said we need to find out how the image is being saved to the PC.

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 08:07

Pixelation can be incredibly handy for anyone who likes doing cross stitch. It's a great aid in designing images.

I've also used cross stitch patterns to help me create little computer graphics too. Ah the versatility of life

cherokee · 03-01-2007, 13:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

Here's an original sized image:

Here's the same image viewed at 20% as in a thumbnail:

Now here's the image shrunk to 20% which looks just the same:

But when you try to enlarge that back to the original size all you get are enlarged pixels (resulting in blurred image):

Thats whats exactly happuning willow

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 13:24

So, if you are looking at the first image and want to save it to your PC what do you do? And what happens when you do it?

KIPAX · 03-01-2007, 13:25

pixelation is also what happens when you use digital zoom on your camera.... everyone turn OFF digital zoom now.. its rubbish ...its only doing what willow has just done... it isnt actually zooming in.

cherokee · 03-01-2007, 13:29

2f64re2.jpg this is one from accyweb xmas do , now when i downloaded it from aw it was full size but for some reason when i open it up it comes through like a thumbnail

cherokee · 03-01-2007, 13:31

if i try to bring it back to full image it turns out like the one willow displays

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 13:40

That image is only 72 x 96 pixels. How did you 'dowload' it? What did you physically do to get it on your PC?

WillowTheWhisp · 03-01-2007, 13:42

entwisi · 03-01-2007, 14:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by KIPAX

pixelation is also what happens when you use digital zoom on your camera.... everyone turn OFF digital zoom now.. its rubbish ...its only doing what willow has just done... it isnt actually zooming in.

Plus you can get the same result by just cropping the resulting image in your image editing software if you really must.(

10 megapixel cameras are great!

)

As for Cherokees problem it does look like you haven't 'downloaded' what you thought you had. If its a web picture when viewing the full sized image, Right click and select "save image as". Then put it wherever you want it on your PC.

If you know a thumbnail links directly to an image (i.e. the link URL ends in .jpg .gif or any other image file extention) you can choose "save target as " from the thumbnail.