Cropping Photos

[WI10DUser]

I have been generally happy with my new 10D when it comes to sharp pictures right out of the camera. My problem comes after cropping an image. I shoot my JPEGS in the Fine, Small Image size. I like to reduce the images down to around 1024X768.

After cropping the image to a smaller size, I seem to get shadows along the sharp edges in the image. It could also be described as a blur along the edges in the image. I try to rectify the situation by increasing the sharpness of the image, but it doesn't fix the problem. I have really noticed the problem when I rotate an image and then cropp off the ragged edges.

I must be missing something. Is there a way to fix this problem or should I start shooting in RAW and learning how to manipulate the images that way?

Any help is appreciated!

[john_houghton]

By cropping the jpeg image and resaving, you are getting two lots of jpeg compression, which is not a good thing. Further, if you sharpen before resaving, you are getting two lots of sharpening. You must expect to see some deterioration in image quality. It is certainly best to use the RAW format: convert to TIFF, and then work with lossless image formats until you have resized and cropped the image. Then (finally) sharpen the image.

OTOH, there is a school of thought that recommends a two pass sharpening workflow. See:

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12189.html?origin=story
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11242.html

John