Don't blame mother!!

[carolinema]

Hi there!
I am new to this website and am a beginner when it comes to digital photography and image editing..... sometimes I feel somewhat overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I need to know and understand to help me improve the quality of my photographs .... nevertheless I am very eager to learn and am determined!!

Hopefully someone can help me with this one:

My Mum took lots of beautiful shots at my first child's christening. Unfortunately my Mum knows nothing about digital cameras and it seems that she had set the camera to less than 1 megapixel (by accident!). After downloading these images onto my computer I realised that they typically have the following properties: Dimensions 640 x 480. Size 95 kb!!! (I was very disappointed at the time!)

While I know that I can view these images on my computer and that I can email them, I am wondering, if I wish to get the photos developed, will they turn out ok? Should I opt to get them developed at 3.5x5 inch or smaller even?? What if I want to edit some of them -then they'll only reduce in size even further, right? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

[TampaDan]

Well you are correct that the images are probably too small to print. When you open them in an image editing program, what DPI are they showing? That more clearly indicates the actual print size.

A 3x5 print at 300 DPI would be 900 x 1500 pixels. (300 DPI being a good high-res print). At 200 DPI the size would be 600 x 1000 pixels. You could probably get a decent looking print at that size.

You can increase the size through software interpolation. There are some programs that specialize in that: QImgage, S-Spline, and Genuine Fractals are some. Even Photoshop will do a decent job. One theory is to increase the size in Photoshop by 10% increments with a little sharpening until you get a decent size you can work with.
The simplest method in PS is to use the crop tool. Set it to 3 in by 5 in and 200 DPI, and PS will interpolate automatically.

The results MAY be good enough for a decent looking print. Not ideal, but passable. Depends on the original image itself. With a little post-processing, they may look pretty good.

[Whoknew]

I bought my mother a digital camera last year for Christmas and we ran into the same problem. For me it was really easy to print out the photos, but when she tried to send it out onetime because I was out of town the store in which she brought the memory card to end up telling her that the format was too small to get prints from. After I had returned back to town my mother told me about this problem and I just couldn’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚t understand what the problem was, not until I went to the store and asked the clerk what the problem was.

What I discovered was nothing short of a misunderstanding on the part of the store, for some reason they were not use to people coming in and asking to have standard prints made from her card, they had assumed that she wanted a few 8x10’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚s out of the deal, but still I was very compelled to assure them that it is possible to get good quality photos from small formats, you just need to use the right software. But I learned that the store did not have the software to do such things, and this really made me wonder, about how many people in the past was turned away because of this.

Most people cannot afford Photoshop, and to be really honest with you, the learning curve of the software is very complicated, however if you want to sit and learn, over time you will be able to use the software in areas that you never imagined. However there is alternative software out on the markets that is user friendly and has a lot of the same tools as Photoshop, and that would be Ulead’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚s Photoimpact, I recommend this to a lot of people just starting out editing photos, it is easy to use and have one of the best instruction manuals I have seen. You can even enlarge photos from small formats, and it will almost do it automatically for you, you just have to choose the print size you want, and you’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚re all set to go.

The software runs for around $100+ American dollars, and is very useful to all armature photographers, and photo editors, and has some useful features Photoshop doesn’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚t have. It is worth the money.

So what ever you do, don’‚’‚…‚’‚…¾‚t get rid of them photos there is still hope!