Save image pixel problem?

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Fri May 23, 2008 5:27 am

I seem to be having trouble when saving images that I've edited. They're not retaining the same resolution as the base image... After working on an image, then saving it to my Desktop, the file properties, through Windows, shows 72 pixels X 72 pixels ...

But if I go to reopen it with P12, it shows 600 pixels X 600 pixels .....

which the image was originally ... Not only that, but the original image was only 1.6 MB, as you can see, after being saved it's now 5.72 MB, About 3.5 times larger, why is that happening? ..... These are the settings I'm using ...

I know that the image is not 600 X 600, even though PI 12 shows it is, because when I use the image with other images when creating a PDF file, the image shows up the wrong size .....

Any suggestions or help in this matter is appreciated .......

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:26 am

You are mixing up resolution with image size. Your image size is 5100 x 7019 pixels. The 72 dpi is normal screen resolution for a PC monitor but does not have any effect on your image.

When you open it in PI, it is not, as you state, 600 x 600 pixels but will use a resolution of 600 pixels per inch when printing. Again, the size of your image has not changed.

I don't know what the original file properties were but assume that you have resized the image somewhere along the lines during editing and had the "Resample" option selected.

Incidentally, every time you save a jpeg image, the jpeg compression is applied again, making your file size smaller, not bigger, and losing you quality in the process.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Fri May 23, 2008 2:57 pm

I'm NOT mixing up image size with resolution ..... I've used other photo apps and have never had this problem (7~8yrs) until I bought PI 12 ..... The pic is scanned into my PC at 600dpi ...... It's saved at 600dpi ..... The properties show 600dpi ..... I open it with PI 12 ... do a little clone paintbrush to fix the image .... Go to close ... Says image has been changed do I wish to save? .... I click yes ..... Now the properties show the image as the same size (dimension), but the resolution goes from 600dpi to 72dpi and the file size jumps up 3X the storage space..... When I open it again with PI 12, even though Windows file properties shows the new dpi at 72, PI 12 reports it a 600dpi .... WHICH IS WRONG! This is why I included the jpg's ....

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Fri May 23, 2008 3:41 pm

Here's a link to a short video I created to help you see the problem as it occurs ...... http://home.att.net/~fm-home/01.wmv
I need/want to keep the resolution at 600dpi ..... Is there a setting I'm missing? The only resolution setting adjustments I could find are pictured above .......

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sat May 24, 2008 4:08 am

I will try once more to make you understand something vital here, image resolution has no meaning whatsoever while the image is on your PC. I admit, a lot of confusion is created by different programs stating different resolution properties for a given image. These property readings can be ignored while editing an image.

When you scan at 600 dpi, your scanner will create 600 pixels for each inch of your original to be scanned. If it is 10 inches wide as original, the scan will be 600 pixels per inch = 6000 pixels, that's all.

Saving that scanned image to your desk top will not change that. When you now look at the image properties in WinExplorer and find, as you stated, that the image resolution is stated as 72 dpi (it is normal for program to state 72 dpi for any given image, some LCD monitor drivers may actually cause this to read 92 dpi) you will find that this has absolutely no effect on the image itself, it is still the same dimension in pixels x pixel. What would change is the physical size in print if you were to change the resolution, the image would print smaller or larger.

Win Explorer is not reporting the correct resolution because it couldn't care less what it actually is. It would have to read the image header to find this info. PI on the other hand, when it opens this image, will read the header and display the reolution correctly as 600 dpi.

The fact that your image all of a sudden becomes bigger after opening it in PI could be due to many factors. Having said that, in your example supplied, you have not even opened the image yet, you are just looking at the properties supplied by the browser.

In your example, PI does not report the image to be 600 x 600, it only shows the resolution to be 600 dpi. Behind the Resolution window you can see your image as being 5100 x 7019 pixels. Changing resolution will not change the image size unless you resample when changing res. Again, the resolution only applies to the physical size of an image when printing. The 5100 pixels make the image 8.5" at 600 dpi. With 72 dpi the image would be 70.83". This has absolutely no effect on your base image though.

To make your image fit the page I would suggest to scan again at a smaller resolution. That is a lot better than resizing in the end. You would have to do the maths yourself but I would aim at having the image of a pixel size to fit the page after scanning. If your original is the right size just scan it at 100% size and forget about the dpi. I would also scan to an uncompressed format like tiff or bmp. You will get better results when editing the scans in PI and saving to jpeg for print.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Sat May 24, 2008 5:29 am

Thank you very much for the assistance .... But I solved the problem ... I un-installed PI 12 and went back to Adobe Photoshop ..... My friend who suggested this software is compensating me for the cost because the store will not take back open packages ......

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sat May 24, 2008 6:31 am

Good luck with that even though you wasted a lot of money. PS might have different settings but the underlying physics don't change.

You didn't solve the problem because there was nothing to solve. All you had to do is understand the workings of digital imaging.

At least we allowed you a bit of free advertising for your beloved program

I wouldn't pay the extra money for Adobe if it was the last thing available. I never had the need to. PI does pretty much do everything I need for my photography and graphic design and gives me a lot more bang for the buck.

Good luck.

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:06 pm

I have this happening too, and it is a problem. It is for me, and I've used almost every version of PI since 4. I'm a digital scrapbook artist. We are required to create our art at 300dpi. We only use 72dpi for product shots. If I create a 12x12 scrapbook page at 300dpi, that equals a square of 3600 pixels by 3600 pixels. I save it as a .ufo to retain my layers, and then I save it as a jpg, invoking the options. I do not compress it and save it at the highest quality (10). When other people open up the file--my boss to inspect it and people who buy it, it does not appear as a 300 dpi piece of art. When it is opened in Photoshop CS2 (which I also have), it says the image size is now 50x50 inches and the dpi is 72--not what I created it at! I had to go round & round with my boss who thought I was not creating the art as required. I tried to assure her I was but to her--I wasn't. In order to get around this, I had to change the resolution (not checking resample) to 300 dpi in the Adobe program, and then had to re-save it. This is to me a totally unnecessary step. I really don't even want to open up the CS2 if I don't have to and would rather only use PI 12 & PI X3. Now every program that opens my newly saved Adobe file will say that it is a 300 dpi item. I cannot afford for my customers to think that I create at 72 dpi. I don't know if you have ever been on the digi scrap forums, but it can get pretty ugly if industry standards are not used in the creation of making simple scrapbook pages. Believe me, this forum is pretty tame. I don't want my name slung around on those--it's not pretty.

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon May 26, 2008 3:39 pm

Fortemac,

I just done a test using PIx3 and the dimensions you outlined, 300dpi, 12x12. I saved the image as a UFO, and JPEG. Opening the JPEG, which would be the one most likely to have the wrong resolution, it still shows 3600 x 3600, and a resolution of 300 ppi (pixels per inch), since this is being viewed/displayed on a pc monitor. DPI=dots per inch, which is only applicable to physical print media. A display media, computer monitors, televisions do not understand and can not display DPI. They must and do use PPI, pixels.

In the Image Settings I set selected User-Defined, Width=12 inches, Height=12 inches. The Resolution selected=User Defined, 300 Pixels/Inch.

If you'll notice in the drop-down menu for the resolution, there are no options for DPI, just Pixels/Inch or Pixels/Cm

Now with those settings looking at the Image size (where the options for Standard, Active Image, Same as image in clipboard, and User Defined area located), the image size is 3600 x 3600. Then at the very bottom, in my case yielded a file size of 37,969KB.

So yes PI does maintain the correct resolution..

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon May 26, 2008 4:28 pm

You're right. When I open an image that I made with PI in Photo Impact, it knows right away what size it is--and the exact dpi. The trouble is other applications do not recognize it as that. If every customer has Photo Impact, then it's no problem. Unfortunately, they use rogue programs such as those by Adobe, and when they check the size, they think the creator must be uninformed or worse, an awful designer.

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon May 26, 2008 5:23 pm

Ok I tried this, and got Adobe PhotoShop Elements 5, PSP x2, and Corel PhotoPaint to read the resolution as what PI were.

Go to the Adjust menu options and select Resolution. Now you have the options for Display, Print or User Defined. I selected Print, which mine are set at 600. Saved the file.

Opening the file in any of the above showed the resolution as 600, whereas before I too was getting the 72...

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon May 26, 2008 5:55 pm

I didn't get it to work at first. Then I wondered if it was my save options so after fixing the resolution, I used MORE SAVE OPTIONS, SAVE FOR WEB, ENTIRE IMAGE. I'm not sure why my regular save & save as don't keep the resolution, but anyway, I thank you for finding a round about way of getting this to work without having to open that Adobe hog. It's some kind of cross platform compatibility issue, but it's not a problem for me if I don't have to open up anything other than Photo Impact. Thanks again for your help!

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Mon May 26, 2008 6:23 pm

..... What happened to the "You are mixing up resolution with image size" answer? Doesn't that work for this gentleman too? .... Sorry I deleted the previous pictures I had posted, I'll put them back up if necessary. .... I did find that once I edited the pic with other software ... the resolution stayed at 600 dpi after working on and saving it in PI 12 .... PI 12 is changing the resolution only on the pics that are saved to my PC directly from my scanner ... I'm using an Epson RX600 All-in-one and the software included with it for scanning. It's set to scan at 600 dpi. ... I'd say it's the scanning software causing the problem, but then why is there no resolution change when I open, edit, close/save with other photo software? And I did try this with other software, so Adobe can't be singled out as causing the problem ....

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon May 26, 2008 11:39 pm

Hey, this is NO gentleman . . . but I do feel your pain.
Signing my name now as Cyndy (mac is the first syllable in my last name)

Frank · Post by **Frank** » Tue May 27, 2008 1:57 am

My humblest apologies dear lady ¡K.

... This problem occurred when I was creating a 'searchable pdf¡¦ file using scanned jpg¡¦s. The few jpg¡¦s that I did a little touch-up to with PI 12 were causing havoc with my software. It was then that I noticed that PI 12 was changing the resolution to 72 dpi upon saving the edited jpg¡¦s. The images were scanned into my PC at 600 dpi. Upon checking the properties of one of the jpg¡¦s before editing with PI 12, it shows the file as being 5100 pixels Wide, 7019 pixels High ¡K The document size as being 8.5 in wide x 11.698 in High ¡K at 600dpi and using 1.41 MB space on my PC. After opening it with PI 12 and simply editing out a small ¡¥blotch¡¦, then closing and selecting ¡¥Yes¡¨ to the question of saving the changes, the properties for the jpg still shows 5100 pixels wide and 7019 pixels high, but it shows the document size as being 70.833 in wide by 97.486 in high and the resolution at 72 dpi with the size of the file jumping to 5.95 MB. Even with the settings under ¡¥Adjust¡¦, ¡¥Resolution¡¦ and ¡¥Adjust¡¦, ¡¥Resize¡¦ set to 600 dpi, I still end up with 72 dpi ¡K.. Unless I do as I stated above, open it with another editing program and ¡¥resave¡¦ it ¡K Then PI 12 leaves it at 600 dpi ¡K¡K Don¡¦t get me wrong ¡K PI 12 seems to be an excellent program ¡K except for the glitch I¡¦m having ¡K.. But I¡¦ve got around 600 jpg¡¦s to scan and most need some touching-up and having to use different programs just to maintain the 600 dpi is way too time consuming ¡K..