Is hi-res + shrink better than taking lo-res?

If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

wrote:
If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

In a word, no.

Unless cramped for disk space, take highest possible resolution and
downsize later for various purposes.

--
John McWilliams

On Jan 31, 7:54 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
wrote:
If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

In a word, no.

Unless cramped for disk space, take highest possible resolution and
downsize later for various purposes.

--
John McWilliams

On a similar note, is it better to use digital zoom or to just crop
later? or is this just chicken or the egg?


Eric

I'd never want to use Digital Zoom for anything. I'd take the
pic and save the original and crop later and then saveas that
cropped file to a different name.

On a similar note, is it better to use digital zoom or to
just crop later? or is this just chicken or the egg?

In article .com,
bluezfolk wrote:

On Jan 31, 7:54 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
wrote:
If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

In a word, no.

Unless cramped for disk space, take highest possible resolution and
downsize later for various purposes.

--
John McWilliams

On a similar note, is it better to use digital zoom or to just crop
later? or is this just chicken or the egg?

Digital zoom is nothing more than in-camera crop and enlarge. You
don't gain anything at all, really, except a larger image of a smaller
portion of the sensor.

--
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
independence.
-- Charles A. Beard

Yes and no. It really depends on the noise level of the image. Shooting say
a 6MP image and resizing it down to 800x600 will give you a better picture
(noise wise) than shooting it at 800x600. The reason is the reduction in
size basically squeezes out most of the noise.

ljc

--
Do not assume that because I didn't reply to your comments that you are
correct or that I am wrong or that I am correct and your are wrong. You
can assume that you bore me!

Digital zoom is crap. If you have the MP but need to make the image look
like you had more optical zoom you are better of cropping later than fooling
with the digital zoom. The digital zoom resample's your image to work its
magic. Cropping doesn't resize it just cuts away.

ljc


--
Do not assume that because I didn't reply to your comments that you are
correct or that I am wrong or that I am correct and your are wrong. You
can assume that you bore me!

And a nice hit in overall picture quality.

ljc

--
Do not assume that because I didn't reply to your comments that you are
correct or that I am wrong or that I am correct and your are wrong. You
can assume that you bore me!




"Ken Lucke" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
bluezfolk wrote:

On Jan 31, 7:54 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
wrote:
If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

In a word, no.

Unless cramped for disk space, take highest possible resolution and
downsize later for various purposes.

--
John McWilliams

On a similar note, is it better to use digital zoom or to just crop
later? or is this just chicken or the egg?

Digital zoom is nothing more than in-camera crop and enlarge. You
don't gain anything at all, really, except a larger image of a smaller
portion of the sensor.

--
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
independence.
-- Charles A. Beard

If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?

When I had to resize a few relatively small images for my job to a smaller
size and the resize dimensions were pretty close to the original ones, I
used the following trick. If your computer RAM allows you to do that then
you can try it but it can take some time. Less RAM, longer transformation
because in this case it will involve the hard drive.

First of all if you resize these images in one step up or down you'll get a
very bad quality of the target images if the sizes can't be divided by 2, 3,
etc. Try to increase the original image in a few times, depending on what
the computer you have keeping in mind that 2 times increase really increases
your picture in 4 times because of 2 dimensions, and only then decrease to
the target size. For example if you have the original image like 500x300
pixels try to increase the image up to 5000x3000 and then decrease to, say,
80% from its original size. You will see the difference comparing to the one
step decrease. Also I'd increase not in 10 times, but in 3, 5, 7, 9, or 11
times, etc. to preserve more thin lines. That's my own feeling based on some
mathematics and geometry. I don't think anybody needs the theory here.

Just D.

bluezfolk wrote:
On Jan 31, 7:54 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
wrote:
If i take pictures in hi-resolution 1600X1200 and then shrink to
800X600 is it better quality to just take picture in 800X600 mode?
In a word, no.

Unless cramped for disk space, take highest possible resolution and
downsize later for various purposes.

--
John McWilliams

On a similar note, is it better to use digital zoom or to just crop
later? or is this just chicken or the egg?


Eric

The answer to both parts is that resizing later and cropping
later give you more control than having the camera do the
tasks. Taking the photo at maximum resolution does make the
file sizes larger, but that won't matter much for most
photographers. Hard drives and memory cards are both low in
cost. I just bought a 160 GB external HD for $50 after
rebate, and not long ago I got a 1 GB memory card for $20
after rebate. And yesterday I saw a 1 GB memory card for
that price, without the need for getting a rebate.