Large JPG's but not very sharp

Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.

Your camera is probably recording JPGs at 72 pixels per inch. Use your JPG
viewer to save a copy of the file at 300 ppi, if possible. That will make
the picture smaller.

Sharpness is another matter, not directly related to how many pixels your
sensor has. It is easier to get a sharp picture with more pixels, but the
progression is geometric: it takes four times as many pixels to double your
resolution. The dirty little secret in digital photography is that an 8 mp
picture is unlikely to be any sharper for most purposes than a 3 mp picture.

Focus, lens quality, and software control sharpness.

Rick C. wrote:

Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.

Hi Rick...

You said you were very new to the digital end of the hobby,
so starting at the entry level class...

Don't know what you're using to view jpeg's, but you said
you they're huge (they're not, really) and you have to scroll
all over the place to see the whole thing. So, let's make
believe that your screen is physically 10 inches wide, and
let's guestimate that the picture you're trying to look at
is 3 times bigger? (have to scroll from one end to the other
3 times to see it all?) If that's a close enough guess,
then what you're really trying to do is look at a 30 inch
wide poster sized picture.

Great for printing (you'll get into the dpi/pixel part
later) but not so good for looking at up close.

What you need to do is "squash" it for looking at, which
most good picture editors like photoshop and paint shop
pro will do. If your current viewer offers you the
option of "zooming", then try zooming down until the whole
pic fills your screen nicely. You'll be pleasantly
surprised.

If not, then get yourself a copy of irfanview (free),
or a 30 day trial of paint shop pro, or photoshop, and
give it a try.

Hope this helps you get started.

Take care.

Ken

Assuming that you're using MS Windows, drag the file from your windows
explorer into an open Internet Explorer window. It will automatically resize
to fit your screen. It's a quick (& free) photo viewer.

"Rick C." wrote in message
.. .
Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.

Dunno what operating system he is using but with XP home my Windows
Picture and Fax viewer fits things perfectly on my 1024 screen, and with
a little MS plug in lets me resize photos safely for emailing, etc. in
Windows Explorer.

Jim Townsend wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:


Your camera is probably recording JPGs at 72 pixels per inch. Use your JPG
viewer to save a copy of the file at 300 ppi, if possible. That will make
the picture smaller.


The 'pixels per inch' or DPI setting of a file has nothing
to do with how it looks on a monitor.

Monitors are absolute arrays. If your monitor is set to 1024 x 768
pixels, then an image that is 1024 pixels across will always completely
fill the screen. An image that's 512 pixels across will always fill
precisely 1/2 your screen no matter what the pixels per inch is set
to.

The original poster's 3 Mp camera produces images that are 2048 x 1536.
These dimensions are far greater than his monitor setting. If his
monitor is set to 1024 pixels across, then he'll see the first
1024 pixels of the 2048 pixel image and the remaining 1024 pixels will
scroll off the screen because there's no room for them.

To properly view this file, he needs a viewing program that will
resample the image down to his monitor resolution or less. Most
image viewing programs have a zoom function that accomplishes this.

Here's some good reading with more detail and examples...

http://www.larry-bolch.com/dpi-revealed/

Rick C. wrote:

Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.

What you are missing is that you are looking at your image on the
monitor in a mode which is like viewing a film print with a magnifying
glass. Select a mode in your display/editing software that will show it
all fitting on screen. It will appear much sharper. Any digital file,
whatever the resolution, will not look sharp if you enlarge it enough.
That seems to be what your software is doing.

Do NOT 'resize' the image- check options for display mode or view options.

The camera should have come with Canon utilities for viewing,
printing, etc, that lets you adjust sizes for viewing, printing, etc.

"Rick C." wrote in message
.. .
Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.

Read the manuals for the software that came with your camera, asshole.
The best image viewer is ACDSee, you can get it on acdsee.com

Jack Rosier wrote:
Assuming that you're using MS Windows, drag the file from your windows
explorer into an open Internet Explorer window. It will automatically resize
to fit your screen. It's a quick (& free) photo viewer.

"Rick C." wrote in message
.. .

Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.



I would suggest downloading Irfanview. It is free, and does a great job
of displaying pictures, and limited editing of them as well.


--
Ron Hunter

You need to view them in a viewer that reduces the viewing size to full
screen or less. Even an 8MP camera won't look much better than a 2MP if you
view at full image size because they're both bigger than your monitor's
physical size and you are just looking through a monitor sized window at
individual pixels. I use ThumbsPlus, lots of people seem to like Picasa
(free from Google).



"Rick C." wrote in message
.. .
Am very new to digital photography, just yesterday purchased a 3.2
megapixel Canon PowerShot 510. I wasn't expecting perfect photographs
with a 3 mp camera, but I'm surprised that my images are not very sharp
at all. I see that most shots I took today and copied to my computer
are 1-1.5 mb in size so I figured there must be a lot of resolution in
there, but they're not very sharp at all. And they're huge -- when I
look at them in my JPEG viewer they're MUCH larger than my monitor's
screen. Have to scroll all over tarnation to see the whole thing.

I've seen photographs much crisper than mine that are 1/10 the file
size. What are some of the factors that I may be missing here? Thanks
for any help.