Photopaint X3 resampling problem?

I need to provide an image file to someone for an advertisment. The photograph was taken at a high resolution (don't recall exact resolution but it was taken at highest possible for camera to capture detail of jewellery pieces) so I needed to lower the dpi to about 300 resolution [changing the file size].

When I open the photograph in Photopaint x3 - accesses the resample option. To my surprise, the dpi reads 72dpi everytime. I even select pixel for resampling images if that is right.

Now when I resample the same photographand save it as jpg2 or tiff, and open the file again in Photopaint, the resolution dpi reads correctly [not 72dpi] to the adjusted 300dpi. Save it as jpg open it again in Photopaint and resample > reads 72dpi.
I noticed that Photoshop opens with true dpi reading. I am aware Corel Photopaint can do the same.

How can I get Photopaint to show the true dpi of any image I open instead of automatically being 72dpi? Is there a setting in tools options?

Thanks for your time and any suggestion I can get on this.
SiMoN Hmm

0 Hunter over 14 years ago

wrote in message news:72477@coreldraw.com...
>I need to provide an image file to someone for an advertisment. The
>photograph was taken at a high resolution (don't recall exact resolution
>but it was taken at highest possible for camera to capture detail of
>jewellery pieces) so I needed to lower the dpi to about 300 resolution
>[changing the file size].
>

well, no, changing the resolution of the file only does NOT really change
the file size. All it does is alter the header info to say that the ppi is
YYY instead of ZZZ.

> When I open the photograph in Photopaint x3 - accesses the resample
> option. To my surprise, the dpi reads 72dpi everytime. I even select pixel
> for resampling images if that is right.
>

then odds are there is no ppi info in the file that PP can read. By default,
every graphics app I've ever seen/used will use "72" as the "magic" number
for ppi when it cannot read said value or no value is given. For example,
the GIF file format does not even have a resolution value in its file
format, yet it will always read as 72 regardless of the application used.

> Now when I resample the same photographand save it as jpg2 or tiff, and
> open the file again in Photopaint, the resolution dpi reads correctly [not
> 72dpi] to the adjusted 300dpi. Save it as jpg open it again in Photopaint
> and resample > reads 72dpi.
> I noticed that Photoshop opens with true dpi reading. I am aware Corel
> Photopaint can do the same.

Are you *sure* the original file actually has ppi info written to it? What
camera is being used to produce these originals? My Nikon D70 does actually
write a ppi value of 300 to the file and PP does read that value. Older
digital cameras that I've used do not write a value to the file and they
will all show up as 72ppi.

Now I am never one to tell someone to actually *edit* a JPG as it's a lossy
format and every time you save it, the JPG algorithm is used and will
physically delete some data from the file (that value may not be noticeable
to the naked eye, but why take the chance?), so I never work on the
original... I always work from a copy of the original... and in the case of
the files from a digital camera, I always work in RAW, do whatever tweaking
I need to do in my RAW editor, and then export to TIF for any final tweaking
in PP (which I use a CPT version of the file so I can use
layers/lenses/etc)... and only then when I've done all the editing I need to
do will I export a JPG...

That said, however, you should be able to do an Image | Resample, change the
ppi value only, and save the file with minimal (if any) degradation of the
file. If you need to do that to many of the files, you can always write a
batch script to do that for you and they'll be processed in seconds.
Cancel
Up 0 Down

Reply

Reject Answer

Cancel
0 SimonKoy over 14 years ago in reply to Hunter

OK.
Thanks Hunter.
Cancel
Up 0 Down

Reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Jeff Harrison over 14 years ago
hi Simon,

IMO, people tend to get hung up on DPI/PPI when it's a parameter highly secondary to pixel dimensions.

When laying out an ad, there is no way to know what the final DPI of a pic used in that ad will end up being until the ad artwork is finished in it's design. Why? The pic you submit might be;

cropped

scaled

rotated

or all of the above.

For example: say you have a nice hi-res shot of a ring. We'll assume it has lots of black velvet space around the ring. You submit the whole file "as is" for maximum design latitude. You take the time to convert to 300 DPI from 72 - thinking this is important... (because this is the conventional wisdom).

The artist at the other end gets your file, but doesn't care whether it's 300, 72, or 10,000 DPI. None of those determine file size, or file quality: pixel dimensions and the file format do. The quality/clarity/staging of the photo itself is of massive importance also, since a 4000 x 3000 image is useless at any DPI if it's a blurry shot to start with.

He takes your pic and pastes/imports it into Draw. Draw scales it relative to the document size based on the DPI value in the file. If you'd sent the same qty of pixels as 72 DPI, the same amount of pixels would come into Draw, just spread over a larger physical space: literally 72 PPI/DPI.

Next, the artist assesses the photo and zooms in on the ring to see how much detail there is.

He decides in seconds to crop away 50% of the photo, focusing more on the ring itself.

Your image is still 300 DPI... after cropping... for a moment.

Then the artist freely scales the image inside Draw which changes the DPI to a different number. The DPI could end up at 100 DPI or 845 DPI or any number you pick. It all depends on the size of the ad, whether a large format poster or a shot of the ring on a business card.

Note: the image is not being resampled, this is a very different thing which is almost always used to change the amount of pixels in the image.

The artist also decides to rotate the image 15 degrees. Once happy, they might convert the ring image with any objects below to a new consolidated bitmap at a DPI close to that of the existing DPI shown for that bitmap.

<SimonKoy> wrote in message news:72477@coreldraw.com...

I need to provide an image file to someone for an advertisment. The photograph was taken at a high resolution (don't recall exact resolution but it was taken at highest possible for camera to capture detail of jewellery pieces) so I needed to lower the dpi to about 300 resolution [changing the file size].
Cancel
Up 0 Down

Reply

Reject Answer

Cancel
0 SimonKoy over 14 years ago in reply to Jeff Harrison

HI Jeff:
OK but - if the image comes in at 72 dpi does this not affect the image resolution? I thought dpi represents the number of dot per square inch. So, less dots enlarged over a large area = poor quality when compared to a higher dpi setting?

My concern is that I wanted to provide an image size that could be easily emailed. So, 300 dpi is a good setting for reproduction if the image was enlarged fro the original size. And each time I opened it in Paint, the initial resample read 72 dpi before I do anything to it.

Build is version 13.0.0.739.
But I admit I find your comments educational Thank you.

SiMoN
Cancel
Up 0 Down

Reply

Verify Answer

Cancel
0 Hunter over 14 years ago in reply to SimonKoy

wrote in message news:72564@coreldraw.com...
> HI Jeff:
> OK but - if the image comes in at 72 dpi does this not affect the image
> resolution? I thought dpi represents the number of dot per square inch.
> So, less dots enlarged over a large area = poor quality when compared to a
> higher dpi setting?
>
> My concern is that I wanted to provide an image size that could be easily
> emailed. So, 300 dpi is a good setting for reproduction if the image was
> enlarged fro the original size. And each time I opened it in Paint, the
> initial resample read 72 dpi before I do anything to it.
>
> Build is version 13.0.0.739.
> But I admit I find your comments educational Thank you.

Simon, you're confusing the physical size of the image in pixels with the
"resolution" - those are two totally separate things. Depending on what you
need to get to someone, emailing a file is not always a good option. Most
bitmap files already have some level of compression applied to them, so
using an application to "zip" them up will rarely reduce them in physical
size. A good bitmap for printing can sometimes be hundreds of megabytes in
size - get enough of them together and it's too big to email (that's why
most places want you to upload the files to their site as they may be too
big to email and too cumbersome to deal with in email from an organization
POV). Using email as your "limiter" to the file size of an image is not a
smart thing to do... unless you're talking about bitmaps that will only ever
be used/viewed on a computer monitor.

If I create a bitmap that is 300x300px, it doesn't matter one whit what the
"dpi" (which is an incorrect value - there are no "dots" in a bitmap as that
is a Printing term. There are only Pixels, which is why PPI is the correct
term, but unfortunately is rarely used in both applications and general
speeech. Many use the terms interchangeably which is not really a precise
thing to do) in the image reads. Regardless of whether this bitmap is set to
300ppi, 100ppi, 96, 72, or even 1ppi it doesn't change the fact that the
image is still 300x300px.

The physical display of a bitmap will vary from software app to software
app. Some applications will read in the PPI value and display the image
accordingly. Other apps couldn't care less what the PPI value is because
they'll only show the bitmap in its pure value of pixels. A web browser, for
example, doesn't read PPI info... in fact one of the original image formats
for the web (GIF) doesn't even hold PPI information in its file header. So a
100x100px image in a GIF, JPG, and/or PNG format would always show up as a
100x100px image even though the PPI in the GIF is technically zero, the JPG
could be 96ppi, the PNG could be 600ppi.

If you use pixels as your unit of measurement in Photopaint (which I do and
suggest people use as the default in that app) it will also just show you
the true physical size of the image. And that's the reason I suggest that
Pixels always be used as your default unit of measure in your bitmap
applications... let's say you have it set to Inches instead. You bring in a
file and it says that it's 3"x5". That really means nothing (at least to me)
because without knowing what the resolution is set to this 3x5 value could
be anything. If I view it with Pixels as my unit of measure, I will know
right away whether or not the physical dimensions of the image will actually
Print decently. (i.e., if the image comes in as something like 300x500px,
I'll know that this is waaaaaay too small to get a decent print... if it's
more like 600x1500px I know I'm dealing with a better image. And if it's
something like a 5000x3000px image I've got more to work with, as Jeff
mentioned, in terms of cropping/rotating/tweaking down to a smaller physical
size yet still retain enough pixels to produce a good print)

Does this help?
Cancel
Up 0 Down

Reply

Verify Answer

Cancel