working with photos

[redtailedmel]

ok heres the deal...
im too cheap to spend money on a new digital camera because the one i have works just fine! call me cheap hehe. its a hp c200 1 mega pixel ive had it about 3 yrs now. i bought it to go with my printer that also takes the compact flash memory cards. heres the prob. i take the pics, to get them to fit on the site i have to use the lowest settings they are 1 ,2, and 3 diamonds the 3 being the best. 1 the worst. 3 makes the best pics. the book describes them as basic, fine, and super fine. ok on the camera and on my pc they look ok but not great once i upload them to the site they look like crap. i have adobe photoshop 5.0 with plug in but have no idea how to use this software. what can i do to help my pics look better.

[sclark]

Re:working with photos

Hey redtailedmel

OK, a hard question. It might help to see one of your images. Anyone that you think looks real bad..

But I will take a stab at this. Now please correct me if I am wrong with any assumptions..

I am guessing you are shooting on the best resoultion "Fine" as you described.. I am guessing you are doing any editing through Photoshop and then when you get them looking good on your computer you upload them to this site and they look bad..

My bet would be that your photoshop has a color profile setup that doesn't match the profile on the internet. Not a Photoshop expert by any means, but I had a similar problem years back. I would get the image looking perfect on my screen and then I would upload it to my website and it was darker and had a odd color tint to it. That was the problem.

Now assuming I am correct with my guess. The fix may not be super easy. You would need to go into photoshops settings and reset thge color profile to none. Or an easier fix (I think Photoshop 5.0 had this feature) is to save the image for the net under the (FILE) drop down (Save for Web). It should covert the colors back to normal without your personal color profile used. But I am not 100% if Photoshop 5.0 has this feature or works the same way like on my PS 7.0.

If you would like, feel free to email me an image that you feel looks good on your screen. I should be able to see if there is a balance problem and let you know the best fix..

Let me know if that helped or if it makes any sence..

Good Luck
Steve

[redtailedmel]

Re:working with photos

actually im using basic which is the lowest and im just putting it straight onto the web. i have no idea how to work the photoshop but hey that save for web might just do the trick if it has that feature. my post must see pics are the ones i think look bad they looked ok on my screen before i posted them. i can email you a few that i took on basic and on the highest if youd like. but it could also be my digi is ancient! LOL

[sclark]

Re:working with photos

Hi Redtailedmel,

I looked at the pics, one thing is hard to see much mainly because the images are far back. So I copied your image to check it out (hope you don't mind). The one image I looked at off my computer was dusy_body_1

Some problem right off.. Your image size is
2.88x2.18 (inches) set at 200 resolution

Now the net only allows 72 resolution on 99% of the monitors that is out there. But most computer settings will use the unused resolution to increase the size.

Under close inspection, the image is soft in focus which may be part of the problem. That may be an easy fix by stepping the image quality to the higher setting.

Last thing, your flash could be on its way out. If you look at the image I am talking about you will see the corners are very dork. And at a distance of 4 foot or more you shouldn't be getting that.

OK.. I did look at your profile that is set for whatever program that is importing the image in. That is whay the colors and some detail look funny. I know you said you are sending it direct from the camera to the web, so the profile that is imbedded could be from your cameras chip settings.

If you get a sec, do send a close up image of anything. One in High res, and one in the low settings.

Digital cameras are getting so much better then they were a year ago, much less a few years ago. But don't give up yet. Lets see those pics.

I hope this helps some
Steve