Image editing & re-sizing / Forum posts

[FBz]

“Full” Screenshots and / or “other” image files.
   Re-sizing images for Forum posting / attachments - or display.
   Elementary perhaps to some, to others… not so much.

   Here’s a fullscreen 1920 x 1200 (El Capitan) screenshot of a desktop (re-sized in Photoshop for purposes here).

   The original screenshot was 26.667 inches wide and 16.667 inches high! (@72 ppi). Much too large for posting here.


Now just imagine the above image at full original size on a 640x480 or 800x600 monitor!

Notice the default “Bicubic Smoother (best for enlargement)” Photoshop default for Resampling.
You don’t want that… very poor overall image quality & detail results when reducing size.

Instead, Bilinear works best for most image reductions. (Actually used for image above.)



Notice that the overall file size was reduced from 6.59M to 1.12M
  … when reducing first image to 11” x 6.875” size, from the original size of 26.667” x 16.667”

  Still that’s large for Forum display and typically, prefer to keep images 9” wide or less.
  But a 9” width here, “mucks up” the very small image details. Unreadable folder titles.
  Seriously, how often does one need to show an entire desktop anyway?



  Settings for the above 9” wide image.


  A Command + Shift + 4 selection… of a specific area - then Bilinear down-sized below.
  Such an image capture, rotated 90˚ - and now you can actually read the folder name(s).



And images here are all “click-able” - to display their full sizes, per click.
Images initially displayed (or embedded within text) under 400 pixels wide - makes it easier for those on older machines… w/ smaller screens & display capabilities. If you’re only going to add images as attachments… reducing image file sizes or overall dimensions in this manner is also a good thing.

*Used Photoshop in all above examples but same /similar is possible with other image editing software apps. (Like Graphic Converter, etc.)

And now, to possibly mud-i-fy all of this a little bit more…

Here’s a gratuitous image of the MotoGP GOAT!
Valentino Rossi / The Doctor.

*And like all images it’s click-able to view full size. 864 x 1296



And here’s a reduction, also with Graphic Converter (small image inset - further reduced). Total size - 648 x 648



*This GOAT image used here without permission and may be removed upon request.
  [Included here - also as something of a homage to “The Doctor”.]

Why all of this?
Well it’s a precursor for a “how-to” concerning… text+picture+text embedding in Forum posts.

[robespierre]

GraphicConverter has several more advanced resampling algorithms (including Mitchell and Lanczos) which fix some of the artifacts and loss of sharpness that can occur with the simple bicubic algorithm. It's a valuable program (although its handling of color profiles leaves much to be desired).

[FBz]

Good point. Thanks for that resampling info robespierre.

An older thread (September 2020) discussing SCREENSHOTS
and the use of some free versions of GraphicConverter...

V.6.5 and V.5.9.5 for OS 9 AND with install codes are mentioned here:
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,5659.msg44948.html#msg44948

“i remember vaguely there was some confusion with at least one picture format because the carbonized build ran on both OS”  -IIO

I do wonder which version of the two noted above,
might be the best for use under OS 9?
[Taking IIO's comment into consideration.]

Anyone familiar in use with both versions?
(Asking for a friend.)
I'll assume that it's V.5.9.5.

[IIO]

i updated from 5.0 to 6.5 around 2006 because of the better font tool, and i hate the elements 7.1 install because of its file  browser (and some plug-ins not working)

afaik there should be no difference between 6 and 6.5 when it comes to filehandling or canvas resizing.

like rob says, photoshop is even worse than GC because it only offers bicubic interpolation - and the worst of all is that PS also does not care about pixels outside the canvas.
when i need to resize pictures i use a custom action which extends the image for 5 pixels in all directions, where the last pixel from inside is repeated. that is still better than white.

modern third party resize plug-ins for PS9 and above are on another level.

[FBz]

Here’s a link to that full-sized (1920 x 1200 - 72 ppi) original desktop screenshot.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ynfSbAKPC0F0KVri3lbY9sW6HXSo7SZ5/view

Download it and then resize it to 12” width… using whatever you think best.
And then post / attach your result file back here for comparison.
Include software and resample method information.