Help! When I Resize A Picture It...

[Guest roxanna]

When I resize a picture it gets all nasty and the pixels mess up. I am trying to put a picture on a layout and when I move it, it goes from big to small on the layout itself.. and I try to resize it and it gets all blurry and choppy... What can I do!?

[Guest scrappin4twins]

First what program are you using? Do you mean the pictures itself is large, but when you copy it and then paste it into yout layout looks too small and that's when you try to resize it?

If that's the case it sounds like it's a resolution issue. Are the photos you're using from a digital camera? Are they scanned? If they are from a camera then make sure your camera is set to the best quality and if they are scanned make sure you are scanning them at at least 300ppi (if not 600ppi). Otherwise you end up with images that look great on the screen, but aren't much good except for sharing on the web or emailing. Remember you can go from large to small, but you can not resize a small image larger without losing quality!

[Guest roxanna]

yes that is what I mean... however, what if I want to talk a picture that I put on my site long time ago...

[Guest scrappin4twins]

There really isn't anyway to take a photo that's resized for the web or a photo you scanned at a low resloution and use it in a layout. The exception to this is if you don't plan on printing your layout (just using it in a video slideshow or sharing on the web), in which case you could work at 72ppi and that would be okay.

There's an article at SGU about resolution and ppi

here:

[url="http://www.scrapgirls.com/graphic_resolution_size.htm"]http://www.scrapgirls.com/graphic_resolution_size.htm[/url]

Unfortunatley there isn't a way (that I know of) to resize a low resolution image to be bigger and retain any degree of quality.

[Guest roxanna]

drats!

[Guest bao]

For sure low to high resolution is a little bit impossible.

[Hummie]

I just wanted to mention that I've come across many people before (and even had the problem myself when first learning) that resize in Photoshop Elements and thought that their photo was pizelated when it really wasn't.

When you resize in PSE, the photo looks horrible until you hit the little checkmark in the bar accepting the new size changes. Once you hit that checkmark, it becomes a clear image again.

You can always hit the undo button later if you do not like the change you accepted.

This may not be her problem, but I thought it a good thing to put here in the forum for others that may be having the similar problem.

[Durin]

Thanks for mentioning that, Hummie, because that was one problems I was having when first learning PSE3. Very frustrating to see your photos turn into a pixillated patchwork mess! I was relieved to learn that it was remedied by applying the transformation!