help .

cherokee

cherokee

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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
 
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.
 
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/gimp-win/gtk+-2.10.6-1-setup.zip

then this

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gimp-2.2.13-i586-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/gimp-win/gimp-help-2-0.11-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.
 
Here's an original sized image:

attachment.php

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

attachment.php

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

attachment.php

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

attachment.php
 

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  • 20.jpg
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  • 500.jpg
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heh willow, I know what you are saying but technically its not 'blurred', its pixelated :D

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
 
entwisi said:
heh willow, I know what you are saying but technically its not 'blurred', its pixelated :D
Click to expand...
I know that Ian :D 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.:p

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

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


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 :)
 
WillowTheWhisp said:
Here's an original sized image:

attachment.php

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

attachment.php

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

attachment.php

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


attachment.php
Click to expand...


Thats whats exactly happuning willow
 
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?
 
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.
 
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
 
KIPAX said:
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.
Click to expand...

Plus you can get the same result by just cropping the resulting image in your image editing software if you really must.( :D 10 megapixel cameras are great! :D )

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.
 
Can you just check one thing - save the image from my post as you normally do then where you've saved the pic on your PC, right click on it and check "properties" - tell me how big it says the image is (ie width and height in pixels).
 
Ive done it twice willow the first says size 2.48kb
and the one ive just done now says size 60.2 kb

so how come ive got 2 different sizes ,,grrrr this is so confusing
 
I'm trying to work out what you're doing. It sounds like it's not fax and picture viewer at fault but the way you are saving the image. It should be 375 x 500 pixels (mine is 60.29kb). I'm trying to deal with PIXELS here because it's pixelation which is the cause of your 'blurring'.
 
Cherokee, try opening teh 60K one. let us know if A) it shows pixelated and b) if when you've closed it teh size has changed

If you tell us teh EXACT procedure you go through to save teh image that may also help
 
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