Resizing Images

Again, not something I’ve really looked at in detail before this project but I discovered that my camera has a maximum image size of 5616 x 3744 at 300 ppi which translates in inches to a 18 x12 picture without any resampling.  Following my decision to print some of my images large scale I thought I might need to do some research.  Resampling, I discovered, is when the image pixels decrease when cropping smaller and when photoshop creates more pixels when the image is cropped larger and resolution is kept constant.  By turning off the resampling box the pixels remain the same but the size box or resolution box change according to which values are the priority.

As many of my images were cropped to large scale I turned off the resampling and adjusted the resolution from 300ppi to 240ppi which allowed for a larger image without the need for photoshop to add in any new pixels.  For the smaller images I used the crop tool, photoshop automatically resamples the image when resizing this way but the resolution should be stated.  I used 300ppi for all my smaller images

Generally though, if using the image size box to resize, from reading the help section in Adobe I found that it is recommended that when cropping images smaller it’s best to reduce the number of pixels in the image otherwise a blurry affect can occur.  This can be done by turning on resampling before changing the image size.  By selecting the ‘bicubic sharper’ in the dialogue box, the image will stay sharp when the resizing occurs.
For upsampling, making an image larger, select the ‘bicubic smoother’ which gives the pixels a smoother outline.  I found this example on the internet.

Resampled to 4088x6144 pixels using resample box and Bicubic Smoother (magnified to 300%)

Bicubic smoother