Do you constantly find yourself resizing your photos to prepare them for the Internet? Maybe for posting them to a blog, emailing them to a friend, or adding them to your online photo gallery?
Surprisingly, photo resizing (or resampling) involves some very complex computer algorithms. There’s many ways to do it, and I won’t go into all the technical details here, but the bottom line is that the default resizing method in Photoshop isn’t the best one available.
If you change just one setting when resizing your photos, you can get much higher quality results that will even make your photos look sharper!
Here’s how to do it:
1.) Under the “Image” menu on top, select “Image Size…”
2.) This will bring up the resize window, pictured below. Notice the drop down listbox at the bottom, where the default selection is “Bicubic (best for smooth gradients).” Unfortunately, this is not always the best option.
3.) From the listbox, select “Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction)” instead, and enter a new size for your image (try something around 600 pixels wide to see dramatic effects):
4.) Click “OK” and check out the results! Try comparing it with the standard resizing option to see how much better this method works. Here’s an example comparison:
Photo by Steve Berardi
Photo by Steve Berardi
Click here to open a side-by-side comparison of the above photos.
Most of the time (but, not always), this method will produce much better results than the standard resize option. If you use this method and get a weird looking photograph (sometimes it may look “too sharp”), then go back to the default!
And, one last note: have you ever noticed how photographs on Flickr look a lot sharper than anywhere else? It’s actually because Flickr uses the best resizing algorithm, known as Lanczos resampling. For some reason this algorithm isn’t available in Photoshop.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
This is one great website. I love it.
Thanks, Lucile! I’m glad you’re finding our articles useful
If you have any suggestions on how we can make the site better, we’d love to hear from you.
hi, thanks for the tip. i have very little experience on photoshop but lt me try what you just taught me through this post. thanks again!
Bicubic sharper will, indeed, give you sharper images in the end, but – as you said – you can have images that become ‘too sharp’. Good examples of this are images with a fair amount of noise; the bicubic sharper sharpens the noise in the image, making it even more pronounced. I find the default bicubic is best for keeping noise at acceptable levels.
this web site is a godsend for me i love it I,m a slow learner and its good to go over things slowly and process it in my mind. and once its in there it there to stay. thank u so much
@Annette – thanks so much for the nice comment! I’m glad you’re finding our articles useful
thank god..after wondering for days,i finally got the answer to as how images look sharper in flickr.
Hi:
Thanks for the work you do putting out all the useful information on the PhotoNaturalist. It is the best I’ve seen yet and really nice to have, easy to follow.
As Annette put it, it’s a Godsend. Keep up the good work.
Steve: I love your information. I always learn some new and useful
tidbits to make my photography and Photoshopping/Lightrooming
easier and more fun. Can’t thank you enough. Frank
Steve: Your information is terrific, you can always learn from your knowledge. Keep up the good work.
Thanks a million
Marty
thanks you very much.
This is what i find.