If you're new to posting color photography on the Web, you'll quickly discover that most scanned images are too large to post without first reducing their size. To post an image on the web, you may need to reduce both its dimensions and its file size. This is done in two steps:
- 1) resizing the image to reduce its dimensions, and
2) compressing its file size using JPEG to shorten its Web download time.
Each of these steps removes information from the image to make it smaller and by doing so may also degrade the quality of the image.
This page will help you get the best from images you prepare for the Web by:
- allowing you to compare an image from a low resolution print with a high resolution negative,
- demonstrating the quality implications of two different methods of image resampling used for resizing,
- explaining why JPEG is the preferred image format for posting color photographs,
- illustrating the effects of JPEG compression on image quality,
- listing the methods that a few different software packages use for resizing images and JPEG compression, and
- providing a few simple processing guidelines for sizing images for the Web.
(Note, for portrait images photocritique further suggests a height limit of 550 pixels.)
Dimensions File Size www.photocritique.net 600x400 150K photo.net Nature forum 600x400 50K
Some typical image sizes for a 35mm image scanned with an HP Photosmart scanner are:
Format Dimensions DPI File Size negative TIFF 3456x2384 2400 24M negative TIFF 1748X1192 1200 6.1M 1.5x1 inch TIFF 1773x1243 300 6.5M 6x4 inches TIFF 667x443 150 867K
As you can see most of the scans above would need both their dimensions and file size reduced to meet posting guidelines. The low resolution (150 dpi) print, however, is dimensionally close to posting guidelines without further size reduction and 150 dpi does produce a good quality print image. However, its 867K file size is too large for Web posting guidelines and still requires file compression.
An image's file size is related to the image format used. In the table above the scanner captured the image in TIFF format. TIFF is used to capture and process images because it's a loss-less format, which means that it captures and maintains the maximum amount of information possible in the image. This also produces and maintains the best possible image quality. However, it also produces files that are too large for posting on the Web. To produce smaller files, images are converted to JPEG format and compressed (in a process explained below) before they're posted on the Web. For more about image formats see "A Word about Image Formats".
Scanning images at higher resolutions like 2400 dpi isn't necessary for posting on the Web. After all you're just going to remove the extra pixels in the process of shrinking the image's size in preparation for posting. Nevertheless, there are four reasons that I still prefer to scan from negatives at 2400 dpi:
A non-smooth technique was used to shrink the image below. Further below is the same image resampled using a smooth technique for comparison. Clicking on the image displays enlarged samples and a survey of resampling methods available in a few software packages.
| (To a smooth image below) | |
By leaving dots out of the image, the image's file size shrinks in proportion to its dimensions. Resizing the 3456x2384 scan to 667x460, like the print, produces a comparably sized file. The resized TIFF is 900K, regardless of resizing method, while the print, which is slightly smaller at 667x443 is 867K.
Compressing an image is a tradeoff between:
JPEG compression level controls the tradeoff between image quality and file size. Software packages, such as those listed below, use a variety of methods to set the JPEG compression level. While each package uses a simple approach to set the desired amount of compression, approaches among packages vary so widely that you may need more of an explanation than just the generic rule of thumb below.
As a general rule*, however, on a compression level scale of 1-100 with 1 being best quality
Note (*) not all packages use a compression level scale. For equivalent settings for various software packages, see more of an explanation.
- settings around 10-15 produce excellent results, and
- settings around 25-30 produce good results.
| (To 'Resizing' above) | |
The sample above shows the image at compression level 10. As you can see by clicking on the image, there is little quality loss at this level. In fact at normal size (1X) this sample is indistinguishable from a sample made at compression level 1 (best quality). Compression level 10 does, however, significantly reduce the file size from 154K to 41K.
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At compression levels greater than 30 you'll usually see compression artifacts appearing. These are often most noticeable along sharp boundaries between areas of contrasting solid colors as seen along the silhouette line in this image.
Microsoft Photo Editor is a commonly available software package often preloaded onto PCs running Windows95+ and NT. It is capable of producing JPEG files of similar quality to PaintShopPro. However, the default JPEG quality factor is set to 50, which is equivalent to compression level 50 in PaintShopPro. As you can see when you click on the image above, this setting does produce a visible loss in image quality. Note the slight whitish edging around the left-most peaks (known as the King on His Throne). To avoid these effects you must manually set the JPG quality factor to a higher value before saving your image.
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At even higher compression levels the quality losses are even more apparent. In this sample at level 75 you can see pronounced edging around the peaks and a blocky effect in the smoother areas of sky.
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Occasionally when checking out new software, you may encounter unexpected behavior. The image above was compressed with older software that had difficulty on newer Pentium MMX hardware. The image on screen above looks just fine until examined under magnification. Digital Light & Color has since corrected the problem and Picture Window 2.5 was used to produce the full image at the top of this page.
Links to Software Packages
This is by no means intended to be an exhaustive survey of software packages. There are many excellent software packages available for creating images for the web with a wide range of capabilities and prices. A few are sampled here:
Visit our photography pages at our main site.
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| Copyright © Garry K. Kessler 1999-2001 |
