A new question about resizing

[hitest]

Sorry if this is already covered, but I didn't see it in any of the forum topics so started a new one. Let me describe what I am trying to do first and then I have a few questions:

I want to edit a bunch of pictures I have with PSP for correct lighting etc, save them, and then print some of them out at Walmart on 4X6 glossy print for a photo album. When I create and save the PSP file, I would like to retain a copy of the original size jpg in case I need to redo something, and then I would like to have a layer (or layers) with all the editing and work I did, and finally a layer with the resized 4X6 for printing to photo. Is this possible using group layers or something? Or does resizing an image automatically resize the background layer?

My picture sources (that contain the jpg files I edit) are basically an iphone 5 with a resolution 2448X3264@72 DPI, and a Sony DCR camera with a resolution of 640X480 @72 DPI. The PSP X9 manual says not to resize photos more than 25% or I can get distortions and low resolution. To resize my Sony picture to 4X6 inches, which is 288X432 pixels, is already a reduction of more than 25%. With the Sony it's not so bad as it's pretty close, but with the iphone pictures resizing to 4X6, or 288X432 pixels is a significant reduction, way more than 25%, and I get a "low resolution" warning from the Walmart website when I upload it. Printing photos at the next standard size of 5X7 is not an option for me (too big for most albums). And I would like to avoid cropping if possible.

Here are my questions:
1) Am I doing this right? Maybe I shouldn't be resizing, or maybe I should be doing it differently? How does Apple recommend getting their high resolution JPGs onto a 4X6 print so it looks half decent?
2) What is the normal workflow for this sort of thing? Do I resize first and then do my photo editing, or photo edit with the original JPEG and then resize?
3) Can I use layers (group layers or something) to help me retain my original JPG dimensions and then the resized dimensions with all the editing layers on the same psp file, or do I need to have 2 different files? Many thanks.

[flagpole]

You do not need to resize to 4x6". This will just happen at Walmart.

They basically ignore the DPI information.

[JoeB]

Sorry if this is already covered, but I didn't see it in any of the forum topics so started a new one. Let me describe what I am trying to do first and then I have a few questions:

I want to edit a bunch of pictures I have with PSP for correct lighting etc, save them, and then print some of them out at Walmart on 4X6 glossy print for a photo album. When I create and save the PSP file, I would like to retain a copy of the original size jpg in case I need to redo something, and then I would like to have a layer (or layers) with all the editing and work I did, and finally a layer with the resized 4X6 for printing to photo. Is this possible using group layers or something? Or does resizing an image automatically resize the background layer?

Realistically you only need to keep two files.

You will open the original image you want to work on. This will be a Background Layer. You do not want to work on that layer because you want to keep your original in case you decide to go back at a later time and start again working on the original, perhaps without losing the layers you had added. So your next step is to Duplicate this background layer, which will give you a copy of that original background on a layer above the Background. You can start your work on that layer and, as desired, create more duplicates as you use various filters, etc. to enhance your image.

When finished you will want to save this file as a .pspimage file. This will save the image losslessly and preserve all of the layers.

You can then resize as required and save that image as a jpg (making sure to use a different filename from your original jpg so as to not overwrite the original jpb) for submission to a photo printing shop.

My picture sources (that contain the jpg files I edit) are basically an iphone 5 with a resolution 2448X3264@72 DPI, and a Sony DCR camera with a resolution of 640X480 @72 DPI.
Here are my questions:
1) Am I doing this right? Maybe I shouldn't be resizing, or maybe I should be doing it differently? How does Apple recommend getting their high resolution JPGs onto a 4X6 print so it looks half decent?

To get decent print resolution of an image you should have a PPI setting of 300PPI (it's not really DPI - see this link to another forum post for more info on print resolution : http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php ... 13#p339324 ) The reason you're getting the low resolution warning is because 72PPI does not provide enough pixels per inch to make the printed image look sharp.

For printing 4x6 prints you don't have to worry about rules of thumb like the 25% resize rule. With your iPhone images you can resize by first setting the PPI to 300, then set the necessary size in inches. For images in landscape format set the width to 6 inches and the height will automatically set to 4.5 inches. This will result in a slight crop being done at the lab. Otherwise you can crop the edges yourself to achieve a 4x6 aspect ratio. If the image is in portrait mode then set the height for 6 inches and the width will automatically resize to 4.5 inches.

Your Sony images are too small (that is, contain too few pixels) to be able to get a really sharp print from them. If you set the PPI for those images to 106PPI you can get a 4x6 print without having to resize the image (therefore allowing you to keep as much of the original pixel information as possible) but it won't look as good as the prints you'll get from your iPhone images. You might get a reasonably passable print if you set the resolution to 150PPI but that will mean resizing the image to 900x675 pixels, which will degrade the image and perhaps negate any print improvement you were trying to achieve by increasing the PPI. Some improvement to the degradation caused by the upsizing might be gained by using some of the image enhancement tools to sharpen and/or add contrast to the image (see further below).

2) What is the normal workflow for this sort of thing? Do I resize first and then do my photo editing, or photo edit with the original JPEG and then resize?

With the large iPhone images, you will do your image enhancements on the full size image prior to resizing. That's because once you resize smaller you're losing pixels, which contain image information. When doing image enhancements, it's best to be working with as much image information as possible. After resizing that makes the image smaller in terms of pixels you will likely want to add some unsharp mask and/or contrast (the Clarity/Clarify tool works well for this) to help sharpen the edges, which can become less sharp the smaller the image is resized.

However, if you're going to resize the Sony images upwards as mentioned above, you'll do that first. That's because upsizing will interpolate (add) pixels and you'll want to have those extra pixels to work with as you attempt to improve the look of the upsized image.

Is there no setting on your Sony cam that allows you to increase the resolution from its present 640x480?

3) Can I use layers (group layers or something) to help me retain my original JPG dimensions and then the resized dimensions with all the editing layers on the same psp file, or do I need to have 2 different files? Many thanks.

This was answered at the top.

Hope this helps.