Resizing in Lightroom

[Hamster]

I was wondering if I'm saving my file incorrectly as it's looking very soft. I"m choosing a max file size of 250K and the longest edge as 1024 pixels, as per the rules. Pixels per inch is 250.

When I view it in LR it's pretty small but at least fairly sharp at that size. But when I upload it to the competition it shows it much larger on the screen, and consequently it looks much softer (pretty crap actually).

Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it is? If the latter, do we need to take sharpness with a pinch of salt when assigning a score?

[Kym]

What colour space did you save it as?
The comp system strips ALL exif data so anything but the default sRGB will look wrong

[MissionMan]

I was wondering if I'm saving my file incorrectly as it's looking very soft. I"m choosing a max file size of 250K and the longest edge as 1024 pixels, as per the rules. Pixels per inch is 250.

When I view it in LR it's pretty small but at least fairly sharp at that size. But when I upload it to the competition it shows it much larger on the screen, and consequently it looks much softer (pretty crap actually).

Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it is? If the latter, do we need to take sharpness with a pinch of salt when assigning a score?

Do you have sharpening setup on export? By default its switched off. There is a separate setting for sharpening on export to the standard one.

[Hamster]

I'm using the sRGB colour space and I have no sharpening on export. It's a finished image with all the sharpening done in PP.

edit - Maybe I shouldn't worry as it's just the upload view and it gets shown smaller when used for voting??

[MissionMan]

Sharpening always has to be applied on export because you are resizing the image. Try putting on the sharpening for screen on medium or high and see how that goes. There are better sharpening scripts for photoshop but most of the time I'm okay with standard Lightroom sharpening.

[Hamster]

Sharpening always has to be applied on export because you are resizing the image. Try putting on the sharpening for screen on medium or high and see how that goes. There are better sharpening scripts for photoshop but most of the time I'm okay with standard Lightroom sharpening.

hmmm, didn't realise that. I'm off out now, but will have a play when I get back and see how things change. Thanks.

[ameerat42]

Hamster. This is only an interim answer to how your files appear soft. In LR, can you select a view that shows "actual pixels", or "full size"?

You may be working on your files in one size and then viewing them here at another. That could be because your browser has some magnification
set that's greater than 1.

So, try to work on your files (once reduced to the posting size) at full size and see how they look. Also, I might ask about how you resize them, but later.

Am.

- - - Updated - - -

PS: If the problem persists, start up a new thread in General Help and post a few samples.

Am(ps).

[Hamster]

Thanks Am, I'll have a play. I'm pretty sure I'm viewing the image, once reduced, at full size, since it is taking up a much smaller area of the screen. If I click on it to zoom in it doesn't change. Probably because the zoom is set to 100% and it already is displayed at 100%??
When I choose it for upload to a competition it is displayed by the forum before confirming (sorry can't remember the exact process) at a size that is larger than LR showed me. It is this version that looks poor.
When using the LR export function I am choosing a max file size of 250k and telling it to make the longest edge 1024 pixels and PPI of 250. Other than giving it a name that's it.
TBH I'm more worried about MMs statement about sharpening being needed as part of export. That sounds like, if I spend time carefully sharpening using high pass filters etc in PS, I then have to use what sounds like a much less controllable "high" "medium" etc process on export, without knowing exactly what the effect will be. I assume I have got that wrong and need to brush up on my exporting process.
Having said that, I've got some of my images printed at over 1 m size, and not had any issue with the resolution. So I can't be doing things that wrong (yes, I've had my eyes tested recently :-))

[MissionMan]

Thanks Am, I'll have a play. I'm pretty sure I'm viewing the image, once reduced, at full size, since it is taking up a much smaller area of the screen. If I click on it to zoom in it doesn't change. Probably because the zoom is set to 100% and it already is displayed at 100%??
When I choose it for upload to a competition it is displayed by the forum before confirming (sorry can't remember the exact process) at a size that is larger than LR showed me. It is this version that looks poor.
When using the LR export function I am choosing a max file size of 250k and telling it to make the longest edge 1024 pixels and PPI of 250. Other than giving it a name that's it.
TBH I'm more worried about MMs statement about sharpening being needed as part of export. That sounds like, if I spend time carefully sharpening using high pass filters etc in PS, I then have to use what sounds like a much less controllable "high" "medium" etc process on export, without knowing exactly what the effect will be. I assume I have got that wrong and need to brush up on my exporting process.
Having said that, I've got some of my images printed at over 1 m size, and not had any issue with the resolution. So I can't be doing things that wrong (yes, I've had my eyes tested recently :-))

The reason you require output sharpening is because you aren't sharpening at the resolution you intend using. I.e. all the sharpening is lost on downscaling the resolution for the ausphoto competition which is much lower than the resolution your original photo is in so Lightroom looks at the resolution and applies the appropriate sharpening for the downscaling. This is why you have the options of matt, glossy and screen, because it applies the sharpening differently based on the print output you intend using.

The alternative to this is to resize the image in photoshop to the appropriate resolution and apply sharpening after you have resized. This is how a lot of the masks/actions in photoshop work and why they are more reliable than the default lightroom sharpening.

This is not unusual from a sharpening perspective with most products, you have presharpening and output sharpening, both of which are applied at different times

[ricktas]

All we do with comp entries is strip EXIF if it is there, to ensure anonymity, as Kym says. No other changes are made to the file you upload to the competitions.

download a copy of BD sizer : http://bd-sizer.en.softonic.com/

Use that on one of your photos to resize it, and then compare it to the one resized using LR. If there is a difference, then it is something set in LR that is the cause of your problem.

And you have resized them in the past to post on the forums, linking them from you photobucket. Have you changed your editing methodology recently?I agree with MM that decreasing or increasing image size does affect sharpness and it is worth checking sharpness post resize and making adjustments as needed to get a good sharpness on a resized photo.

[Hamster]

Thanks for the help guys. When I'm back in front of the computer later I'll put the suggestions into practice.
The images I put on photobucket, Rick, are essentially just slapped in there quickly for demo purposes. But I wouldn't have reduced them as small a 250k. I probably just picked a size around 1 Mb exported to an "export" folder in LR and uploaded. So the same process as I'm doing here, just larger file sizes.
It may be that because the reduction in size wasn't as great I didn't notice the change in sharpness that MM talked about.

[Hamster]

OK, I think the issue was as MissionMan described, since adding sharpening in export does indeed improve things. I guess I'd never really encountered this before because usually, when I reduce images in size by this amount, it's for quick viewing/emailing/uploading purposes and I've just taken the loss in quality as a given that comes with the territory. Now I'm putting a couple into competitions it matters. Wish I'd asked the question for the previous couple I used, as I wasn't happy with the sharpness on those either :)
I couldn't try resizing with bd sizer as I went full iFag Mac user last year and they don't appear to have an OS version. I'll do a bit of research and get this a bit more slick, including working out a workflow in either LR or PS.
Once again, thanks for the help guys.