Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

My monitors are calibrated regularly with Spyder2 - CRT weekly (maybe a day or two over) and the laptop monthly.

I have no LCD screen other than the one one the Dell laptop. The colours are fine, matching well with the CRT - also most photos look fine on the laptop screen. It's mainly those photos with prominent lines that seem to look worse on the laptop screen.......... mainly anything at about 800 x 600 or less.

Maybe I shouldn't have done a quick, albeit slight 'smart sharpen' after I'd resized the image for the web. I guess that may also have added to the jaggy/halo effect.

Does the staircase look poor on your screen?

Pol

I'm using Julia's new laptop (I'm so envious ) and although this is quite high-res for a laptop (1440x900) the screen is a bit too bright (not yet calibrated either) and, yes, I can see some aliasing in the edges in your picture. I don't remember noticing this on my PC with my CRT.

Stephen is always picking me up for over-sharpening my pictures!

Ian

[Pol]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

I'm using Julia's new laptop (I'm so envious ) and although this is quite high-res for a laptop (1440x900) the screen is a bit too bright (not yet calibrated either) and, yes, I can see some aliasing in the edges in your picture. I don't remember noticing this on my PC with my CRT.

Stephen is always picking me up for over-sharpening my pictures!

Ian

My lappy's a widescreen and set at 1920 x 1200. It was also rather bright and with paler colours until I colibrated it with the Spyder2. It's certainly superb for watching a DVD. It's completely different when using the calibrated settings, much better. Also ideal for watching a widescreen film when curled up in bed on a grotty Winter's day.

Stephen didn't tell me maybe I'd oversharpened some of my own pics .... so I'lll thump him for that next time I'm doing the soup run.


Pol

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

My lappy's a widescreen and set at 1920 x 1200. It was also rather bright and with paler colours until I colibrated it with the Spyder2. It's certainly superb for watching a DVD. It's completely different when using the calibrated settings, much better. Also ideal for watching a widescreen film when curled up in bed on a grotty Winter's day.

Stephen didn't tell me maybe I'd oversharpened some of my own pics .... so I'lll thump him for that next time I'm doing the soup run.


Pol

1920x1200?! I want one! You sure that is the native res of the screen? Do tell me more - brand/model etc.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

1920x1200?! I want one! You sure that is the native res of the screen? Do tell me more - brand/model etc.

Ian

Just done a bit of research and it seems that Dell has this exceptionally high-res laptop screen That kind of pixel density will make it more akin to a CRT in that the individual pixels will be small enough for aliasing to be masked. Of course this means that if it looks sharp and smooth on a screen like this it could look coarse on a less good screen. It's not so easy know where the problem lies - in the cheap screen or elsewhere!

But I share your frustration!

Ian

[Pol]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

1920x1200?! I want one! You sure that is the native res of the screen? Do tell me more - brand/model etc.

Ian

LOL ..... It's a Dell - chosen with the help and advice of our eldest (mega-geek) son, who had come home to fix my trashed PC.

Hang on and I'll dig out a copy/paste of all the specs.

Pol

[Pol]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

LOL ..... It's a Dell - chosen with the help and advice of our eldest (mega-geek) son, who had come home to fix my trashed PC.

Hang on and I'll dig out a copy/paste of all the specs.

Pol

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

[Stephen]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

Pol, I have to say that on my less well specced Acer lappy with a 1400x900 native res screen, there are absolutely no visible jaggies on your staircase picture. I can only assume that what you see is something to do with the resolution you use. Simply as an exercise I suppose you could alter it to 1400x900 to see if it makes a difference. Frankly though like Ian I'm a little envious of the native res of your screen

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

Nope, Pol's screen is native at that resolution, it's just a super high-res screen (grr, I want one! ).

One thing to remember with high density screens like hers and my 1600x1200 CRT is that pictures displayed at 100% on these screens they will be smaller than when displayed on lower res screens, so imperfections will be more visible.

Ian

[Pol]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

Pol, I have to say that on my less well specced Acer lappy with a 1400x900 native res screen, there are absolutely no visible jaggies on your staircase picture. I can only assume that what you see is something to do with the resolution you use. Simply as an exercise I suppose you could alter it to 1400x900 to see if it makes a difference. Frankly though like Ian I'm a little envious of the native res of your screen

I did try different resolutions when I fist got the laptop - mainly because the smaller text drove me nuts. However, I soon reverted back to the native resolution when I got used to it as it's a lot better that way, especially for films.

I've just been over looking at the Dell website and see they still have some good, special offers on the Inspiron 9400. Mind you - it can be a tad large and heavy if you're carrying it around a lot. Mine tends to get used mainly upstairs or maybe in the camper so there's not a lot of carrying to be done.

I just allowed #1 son to talk me into it at the time as we were all anxious to get me back online and also with what he suggested would be the best specs and screen. I knew nothing much about laptops so I just went along with what he suggested. Good service from Dell though. It arrived within 2-3 days iirc.

Pol

[Pol]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

I just allowed #1 son to talk me into it at the time as we were all anxious to get me back online and also with what he suggested would be the best specs and screen. I knew nothing much about laptops so I just went along with what he suggested. Good service from Dell though. It arrived within 2-3 days iirc.

Pol

There's no need to spend as much as I did (or maybe I should say as much as my son persuaded me to spend). He was clicking away merrily customising the order with all the bells and whistles available.

Here's the link

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

There's no need to spend as much as I did (or maybe I should say as much as my son persuaded me to spend). He was clicking away merrily customising the order with all the bells and whistles available.

Here's the link

I don't need an ultra powerful desktop replacement and weight is a big consideration. Indeed, a 15.4 inch screen is too big anyway. My old Vaio has an 8.9 inch screen, but still packs a 1280 pixel wide display.

The new Sony Vaio TX fits the bill - not cheap though

Ian

[Blank Page]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

Hi Blank Page,
As I mentioned in Ian's "Sharpen or Resize" thread, Qimage is a magic solution to printing problems. Download a demo from here

Thanks for the suggestion, rogleale. I haven't gotten into the printing end of digital photography yet (baby steps ), just uploading to websites so far, and that's where my complaint is. But I saved your info for future use, not too far in the future I hope.

[Blank Page]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

As a matter of interest - what type of screen are you using?

Hi Pol. I have a CRT monitor but it's fairly small (17") so that might be the problem. The largest resolution I can get on it is 1024 x 768. Viewing pictures at their full size is no problem, it's when I reduce them to a size suitable for web pages that I get the stepping problem in diagonal lines. Yet your picture of the spiral stairway looks perfect on my monitor . I'm sure that if I made that, there would be a lot more stairs to look at , so I'm wondering if the problem is in the processing software (not with me, of course ).

(Nice elegant picture, by the way.)

[Ian]

Re: Jagged lines when reducing size of a photo

Hi Pol. I have a CRT monitor but it's fairly small (17") so that might be the problem. The largest resolution I can get on it is 1024 x 768. Viewing pictures at their full size is no problem, it's when I reduce them to a size suitable for web pages that I get the stepping problem in diagonal lines. Yet your picture of the spiral stairway looks perfect on my monitor . I'm sure that if I made that, there would be a lot more stairs to look at , so I'm wondering if the problem is in the processing software (not with me, of course ).

(Nice elegant picture, by the way.)

Hang on - we had a problem with your lake picture that I looked into for you, remember? I suggested that the quality setting in your camera might have been set too low? This would aggravate the effect you are describing

Ian