How do you crop without losing quality

[viodea]

Everytime I try to save a cropped image, it as me to select the compression ratio. I assum this will do the Jepg compress again which may effect the image quality. I want to crop this for print and want to keep it as good as possible.

I'm still a little confused on using Photoshop Element 3.
I know how to select the crop ratio, 6x4, 7x5, and so.

What do I do with the Resolution? I click the front image button and thought that would give me the resolution of my original image but it shows 72 pixels/inch. This look too low. Does it mean it's view on the monitor and that's the resolution I'm seeing?


How can I save a cropped image without the exra compression?

thanks

[jbkalla]

I never got used to the crop feature for the reason that I was unsure what it was doing to my resolution, so I always crop using the Rectangular Marquee tool, set to a 7x5 or 6x4 or whatever aspect ratio. That doesn't change the resolution.

Maybe someone else will have the more correct way to do this!

[hemuni]

If you want to use the crop tool just leave the resolution field empty, this will crop retaining original resolution.

If you want to save the image without loosing information you have to use a lossless format like PSD or TIFF.

Every time you save to jpeg the image will loose information, but if you leave the compression ratio at 10 the loss will be insignificant.

[jbkalla]

Originally Posted by hemuni

If you want to use the crop tool just leave the resolution field empty, this will crop retaining original resolution.

If you want to save the image without loosing information you have to use a lossless format like PSD or TIFF.

Every time you save to jpeg the image will loose information, but if you leave the compression ratio at 10 the loss will be insignificant.

So here's a question: What does setting jpg compression quality at 12 do? Does it add information to the original jpg? I assume the 10 setting is the normal-highest setting in other programs?

[hemuni]

Originally Posted by jbkalla

So here's a question: What does setting jpg compression quality at 12 do? Does it add information to the original jpeg? I assume the 10 setting is the normal-highest setting in other programs?

In photoshops help it says that for printing the best choice is maximum which is 10.

The option to go to 12 I'm not sure about, other that it almost doubles the size of the image file.

I personally cannot see any difference between 10 and 12 so i use 10.

[viodea]

great help!!! thanks

[ScottE]

If I was going to save, re-open and do some more work and save again several times I would switch to TIFF or some other lossless file format instead of JPEG.

[DocFrankenstein]

Shoot raw from the beginning. ACRAW allows you to crop without even resaving the file.

[viodea]

RAW sounds a little to complicated to me. I don't want to post process everytime. Like the weekend shooting I've done for a soccer game, I took over 800 pics and I don't want to postprocess all those to just filter out those that I don't want.

[hemuni]

Originally Posted by viodea

RAW sounds a little to complicated to me. I don't want to post process everytime. Like the weekend shooting I've done for a soccer game, I took over 800 pics and I don't want to postprocess all those to just filter out those that I don't want.

RAW means more work but it also means better images. It all depends what you want from your photography i guess.

I normally filter out the keepers using Zoombrowsers star rating and delete those i dont want and move those that im unsure of to a subfolder.

After that i do the pp work in DPP and only on the keepers.

You can choose to shoot RAW+JPEG this way you have both.

[viodea]

Maybe I need to play with RAW for a little and than decide where I want to draw the line between quality and convenience.

[BillMarks]

Most older computer screens have a resolution of 72 pixels per inch (ppi). I think now many are 96ppi. If you are only going to post the images on the net or send through email, using a resolution of 72 or 96 when you crop is fine. If you want to print your images, set ppi to somewhere between 200 and 300. I've printed very nice 11"x14" prints at slightly less than 200ppi--from a 5MP camera.

[jfrancho]

Since monitor resolution is variable, for the web, I crop and resize to pixel dimensions, not resolution. For printing I follow each print services recommendations for resize/ppi.

[Longwatcher]

a couple of notes:

1. PS has 12 levels of compression, most over programs have 10. 12 in PS equals 10 in other programs. In PS 10, 11 and 12 all say maximum.

2. I tend to use canvas size to get the desired crop without changing pixel values (or use trim in DPP).

3. As mentioned anytime you save a jpeg you lose some information, more with more compression (lower numbers in PS)

4. I highly recommend shooting in RAW unless there is a compelling reason to shoot in jpeg (such as card space or critical time needs). It takes very little extra time to see the results in DPP or even PS Bridge and then only convert the ones you want to keep. And it is way easier to correct exposure and white balance from a raw shot.

Just my opinion and experience,