Saved Images are Degraded

[artgal]

Nature of the problem
This has not been my week. After a hard drive crash, I've had to reinstall PSP X6.

Properties of your source files (format, file size, where did you get it?)
When I import my Android camera photos (2048x1536), they look fine. I typically resize to 50%, edit and Save As myfile.jpg. All my Saved As photos are severely degraded, as if I'd saved them to 16 colors. I think PSP is opening my orig files at 72 ppi, rather than 300 ppi and I don't know how to change that.

What devices are involved and their mode of connection?
I download my photos from my mobile phone, (Android Galaxy S3) via a remote app called WiFi File Transfer Pro. I've used it for several years.

Project Properties - ?

Output format
I'm saving as jpg 300 ppi

Error Codes (if any) - None

I'm running a 16 bit system. When I reinstalled PSP, should I have installed as 16 or 32 bit or both?
Also I was looking at the Associated File Formats. They are all checked. I noticed that I'm not able to edit (uncheck) any of them.
I know this has to be something simple, I just can't find the issue. Any ideas?
Thanks.

[artgal]

RE: Saved Images are Degraded

ISSUE SOLVED

What an idiot I am :-/
In the Save As optimizer, the compression was all the way up at the wrong end (highest compression). worse yet, I must have looked at it a half dozen times. Duh.
A mere two days work lost.

[JoeB]

We all miss stuff in the settings - a learning moment. Always check settings in all tools until you are familiar with what settings you usually want to use.

On another note, the PPI settings are for print output only and don't have any effect on how an image is displayed. Only the pixel size of the image determines how the image is displayed on your monitor and it determines the size the image looks on your monitor, not how "degraded" it might look as long as you are viewing the image at 100%.

For print output, you want to use the Resize option of Paintshop Pro to save the image so that the the PPI (Pixels per Inch - the number of image pixels that will be printed on each inch of printed paper) to between 200ppi and 300ppi. Your image may already have that information set as your print resolution, and you can check that with any open image by going to the menu item Image>Image Information.