What width & height is best?

[Ronniebootwest]

Before you all groan and say "Oh no not again!" let me explain what I need to know.

I now realise that I get a much better and sharper picture (in version 5) than ever I used to before. I was always a pundit for using the good old 1024 v 768 x 72 as the image size for creating my slide shows. However, I now project my shows with a Mitsubishi projector and have discovered that my shows are much much sharper when I choose a higher resolution, e.g. 300. I still crop my images to 1024 x 768 though, just to fill the screen. This has the disadvantage of losing some of the image and I feel that I want to overcome this and retain more of the image.

My camera produces a RAW image of 3504 x 2336 pixels and if save this at a resolution of 300 I finish up with a 23.4mb file. The 'old school' of thought was to reduce the resolution and the image size so that the size of the file is much smaller. In these days of pan & zoom, larger image size is much more important.

I am rambling now so let me ask my question. When projecting an image with a projector set to 1024 x 768, is it essential to resize the image to the same resolution or not?

Ron West.

[alrobin]

Ronnie,

I'm going to publicly "groan", but probably not for the reason you were thinking of!

You stated:

However, I now project my shows with a Mitsubishi projector and have discovered that my shows are much much sharper when I choose a higher resolution, e.g. 300.

This is a "pet peeve" of mine. "300 dpi" has no relationship at all to the resolution of your images so it is impossible for them to be sharper at 300 dpi than they are at say 72 dpi.

The only dimensions that affect the resolution (and perceived sharpness) are the number of pixels horizontally and vertically in the image. You can have the same number of pixels at 72 dpi as you can at 300 dpi. (try it sometime in Photoshop if you don't agree with me).

This is an old bone, and should have been buried long ago, but every so often rears it's head, and we go through the arguments all over again. (if you do a search on the archives, you'll see lots of old discussion along these lines).

To answer your main question, however, if your images are smaller in pixel dimensions than 1024x768, you should resize them (not just increase the size, but re-scan or re-crop from the original, so that they are the "original" pixels.)

If the image is larger already, it is not necessary to crop to the projector resolution, but it is advisable to do so as then you will be choosing the exact pixels yourself that you want to show, and not relying on your computer to make the decisions for you as to what colours, densities, etc., to apply when such compromises are necessary in the downsizing process . This may be a little academic, however, as you may not be able to notice any significant difference in the resulting images.

[Conflow]

Al, How right you are...

When I see '72-300' it reminds me of an old Boeing 727 Aircraft ~ they all look the same, and what have 72-300's got to do with Pixels, absolutely nothing, and if memory serves me correctly, that particular Topic raged on for over a month...not once but many times over a few years.

Ronnie, be careful with visual perceptions as ambient and background lighting can make a vast difference in what you actually perceive, particularily if you wear spectacles.

Brian.

[Ronniebootwest]

Alrobin is right! I know that now because I did as he suggested and ran a couple of tests.

I cropped an image down to 1024x768 at 300 resolution.

I then cropped the same (original) image down to 1024x768 at 72 resolution.

Then I ran both in PTE and could see no difference.

2. It seems correct therefore, to crop DOWN to 1024x768 at 72 Resolution, BUT if you intend to use version 5 to zoom in/out then the size of the image, i.e. 1024x768 will need to be increased so that the visual quality of the image is maintained. Am I correct in this thinking?

Conflow.

You don't need to remind me that the '72 resolution' thingy has been discussed before, I know that already but the fact that it has been discussed so many times, demonstrates that many folk are still confused so be patient with us newer fella's

Ron

[alrobin]

2. It seems correct therefore, to crop DOWN to 1024x768 at 72 Resolution, BUT if you intend to use version 5 to zoom in/out then the size of the image, i.e. 1024x768 will need to be increased so that the visual quality of the image is maintained. Am I correct in this thinking?

Ronnie,

You are correct, except, please make it your New Year's Resolution to never even mention "72 Resolution" ever again!

[Ronniebootwest]

You win Al!

[ContaxMan]

Photoshop tells us what we need to know. The pixels/inch is clearly labelled "Document Size". The projected image is not a document - vdu's and projectors display pixels!

Enough said?

[Conflow]

Ronnie,

You are correct, except, please make it your New Year's Resolution to never even mention "72 Resolution" ever again!

Al and Ronnie,

Al, I also appreciate your sentiments about 'Ronnies New Year Resolution' (quote) ~ but looking at Ronnie's last Post, he does have a point concerning New PTE Users and this hoary old topic of 72-300.

Would it not be a worthwhile suggestion for someone to compose a "One-Page Explaination" about this 72-300 dilema and have it posted to a Web-Site where New-Users could be refered to for enlightenment ~ The same could be said for the 'Registry-Key' dilema !

Just a suggestion...

Brian.

[Ronniebootwest]

and a very good suggestion it is too! but please keep the expanation 'SIMPLE' so that people will understand it rather than be confused even further by over the top technical jargon.

Ron

[ContaxMan]

Anyone who searches for "The myth of 72" will find any number of clear explanations - here's one of the easiest:

"The Myth of 72"

[alrobin]

Would it not be a worthwhile suggestion for someone to compose a "One-Page Explaination" about this 72-300 dilema and have it posted to a Web-Site where New-Users could be refered to for enlightenment ~ The same could be said for the 'Registry-Key' dilema !

I think, as Roger says, "Enough said". There are plenty of excellent technical explanations about this on the net, available for anyone who really wants to understand this confusing topic. Unfortunately, digital technology is complex, and it is sometimes difficult to describe what is happening without speaking in fairly technical terms. Especially in a Forum setting - if I could speak to Ronnie face-to-face, I think I could explain what is involved in less than 5 minutes. I would then run away before he could "KIS(S)" me!

Re the "Registry Key dilemma", I see that Ken C. has already posted an article on this.

[Ken Cox]

well Al

Ronnie has a msn messeger account am sure he would gladly talk to you if you would register and inform him

ken

[alrobin]

well Al

Ronnie has a msn messeger account am sure he would gladly talk to you if you would register and inform him

No, I really meant "face to face".

Ronnie, will you, by any chance, be going to the RPS International meet in Cirencester in Sept.? We could settle it there!

[Ronniebootwest]

Alrobin said:

No, I really meant "face to face".

Ronnie, will you, by any chance, be going to the RPS International meet in Cirencester in Sept.? We could settle it there!

I am not planning on the September gig, hope to be on holiday around that time.

Ken Cox is right though, I do have an MSN account and talk to many colleagues each week. Why don't you register? or are you one of the old school who still believe 'peer to peer' is a little dangerous? I think that it has come a very long way since the old days of MSN chat rooms. I use it an awful lot and have never had any problems.

Ron

[alrobin]

I do have an MSN account and talk to many colleagues each week. Why don't you register? or are you one of the old school who still believe 'peer to peer' is a little dangerous?

Guess I'm one of the "old school" trying to cope in an increasingly technical world. I use "peer to peer" on occasion to download music. I do have an MSN account, and I used to use MSN but gave up on it when I started having technical and logistic difficulties. I used MSN while coordinating a project last fall, but found it too frustrating, and it also resulted in some serious mis-understandings, so I gave up on it completely.

For a while MS was having problems getting both sound, images, and text to all work together in Messenger - on certain systems, mine included, you could either have text and sound, or text and images, but not all 3 together. Don't know if they have solved that, or not.

[Ken Cox]

WELL AL

i send text , jpg files and zipped mp3's or files to Ron all the while talking with him

same with Hawk but add video into the mix as well

there are times that there are small glitches but they are getting rare

we are using the old version 7.5 we have not migrated to the latest version

been waiting for Ron to sign on all morn

Hawk is in trouble with his computer -- has to have a redo and his back is killing him

ken

[JohnFeg]

and a very good suggestion it is too! but please keep the expanation 'SIMPLE' so that people will understand it rather than be confused even further by over the top technical jargon.

Ron

The simplest way to look at this old chestnut is:

(a) If you are sizing an image in inches, millimeters, furlongs or any other unit of mensuration, you can modify the resulting resolution by specifying how many pixels you want to put into each linear inch, millimeter or furlong.

( as soon as you choose to make the image a certain number of pixels wide and high you have automatically set its resolution.

So, if you're cropping an image, with the crop tool parameters set to pixels, you're wasting your time to put any number at all in the "Resolution" box.

John