Help on resizing

[lynn53]

First off I just have to tell you Gregr that your photo's are stunning and incredible beyond words. Throughly enjoyed each and every one of them!

Now for my problem (well one of my many!) I'm trying to resize my photo to 8000bytes or 150x150 pix ... so that I can use it as my avator. When I reduse it to 150 pix x 150 The quality is so bad there is no way I can use it. What am I doing wrong or how do I correct it. thanks
p.s. I usually take these in fine and small size (nikon 200)
Help???? Please.

 

[gregr]

Well thanks- that was awfully nice to read
What program are you using to resize the picture? When I'm making an avatar the first thing I do is change the size to 150 pixels (at the longest dimension) and the second step is the compression. The program you use determines the steps to take so I'll wait to hear back.
Greg

 

[gregr]

ps
This article has instructions on resizing with the free program Irfanview.

 

[lynn53]

I'm using Photoshop Elements 3
Thinking I'm not doing the compression correctly.

 

[lynn53]

Got it! great! That article was excellent. Seems to work much better going through " saving it to the web", rather then going through the image resizing.

thanks

 

[lynn53]

Gregr...can you tell me what type of blenny or gobie that is in the bottom middle of your blenny page?

thanks

 

[gregr]

Great- glad you found that article helpful. Is this the blenny you're talking about?

If so, it's a Tailspot blenny (Ecsenius stigmatura), and one of the all-time coolest fish in the world

 

[lynn53]

Although he looks adorable ...it's not him. This one is on your tank 2006 page. You have 26 photo's on that first page and this fish is the 26th one.

How come your clams don't close up when these little guys are on them?

cheers

 

[gregr]

Ah- that's a Gumdrop goby aka Coral Croucher (Caracanthus maculatus). Kinda like a big fuzzy Clown goby but extremely secretive and he disappeared after about 6 months
The clams get used to the blennies real quick- they did close a little at first though. And now... the Tailspot has taken to perching in my Crocea clam

 

[lynn53]

Thats the name! I've seen them on ocassion ...but couldn't remember their name.
Well their both on my "must have list" !
Can I ask you how much touching up you do to your photo's in photoshop?

cheers

 

[gregr]

I adjust the exposure and white balance in the raw conversion program and in Photoshop I'll do minor adjustments to the exposure (via levels or curves) and make color corrections as necessary, then I spend a couple minutes cloning out dust specs that are on my sensor if they show up in the picture, then the sharpen filter and finally save for web. Actually, the first thing I do in Photoshop is resize if I'm editing a picture for the web- I like to work on the small version instead of having to scroll around all the time.
Anyways- it sounds like a lot of work but it generally only takes a few minutes or less per picture. Unless it's for print- in that case I go over the picture with a fine toothed comb, so to speak.
Hope that answers your question.

 

[gregr]

I mean to warn you about the Coral Croucher- unless you have a mostly empty tank (no liverock or corals) you probably won't see it much.