ryrb4ray

Hi I live in Ormond Beach FL, I don't usually crop much but sometimes i do it ti enfisize a certain part of the photo

wrei

Talking about grainy pictures. I know that the resolution of is a limiting factor for enlarging pictures. However, I completely forgot that same problem occurs if your ISO setting is too high. I put my ISO setting on "auto" and was surprised that I could still take pictures without flash in very low light situations. The camera set the ISO at 1600. The results came out grainy and washed out - nothing to be proud of.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

But... only do it to a copy of your original file!!!!

Freddie Loc: Orlando, FL

Ian, I hope Irene will be a weak storm if it continues your way. Freddie

Randyb1969 Loc: Armpit of California

First of all, as it's been said, always work with a copy and keep the original unspoiled. But I noticed a few people mentioning cropping to get the size down for web use. I don't know if I read that wrong, but I just re-size my images when using them for web/screen use.

djfkeefe

Iif I understand, "grainy" is what is called "noise". My cameras, all Canon P&Ss, are G9, SX10IS, SX120IS, all 10 or 12 Mexapixels. I use Picasa(3?), occassionally crop small sections, and enlarge them to 8x10 size. I am always able to "uncrop" back to the original. These "large" crops are grainy only when the cameras put me in high ISOs...400 and up. I read the above comments and suggestions, and realize that I'm doing something wrong.
What?

Freddie Loc: Orlando, FL

1) Like stated above, if you crop a 12 MP picture to 1/4 of the size, you are now to 3 MP. That will not look good at 8x10. Keep in mind what you want to photograph and take the picture close to that size. I sometimes take a bit more area so I can crop it a bit, but most viewfinders only show a percentage of the actual shot and that is usually enough extra picture. try taking a picture of what you see in the viewfinder, your actual photo will probably be slightly larger.
2) The physical size of the sensor is a huge factor in eliminating noise. The full frame cameras, even the 12 MP ones, have a much better noise ratio due to their ability to take in more light to each pixel. The Nikon D3S (only 12 PM but on a full frame sensor) is exceptional at eliminating noise at very high ISO's, better than the D3X (24 MP on the same sixe sensor). The P&S cameras usually have a very small sensor, and when they pack in lots of pixels, the noise gets even worse. The answer is to use as low an ISO you can to get the picture. Other than that, look at what size sensor your cameras have and decide if a larger sensor camera is in your future. Most people will not enlarge their prints or severely crop their pix very often, so the P&S cameras sell well as they are affordable. I have read that he cost of sensors goes up exponentially as the size increases. I hope this helps.
Freddie

Freddie Loc: Orlando, FL

DJKeefe, I just looked it up, the canon G9 has a sensor size of 7.5 x 5.5mm. This is an area of 41 sq mm. The cheapest Nikon DSLR at the same MP has a sensor size 23.6 x 15.6mm, or 368 sq mm. That means each pixel on the nikon is 9 times larger than on the G9. That means 9 times the ability to record the light on each pixel, hence very low noise compared to the G9. Those odds are difficult to overcome with a P&S camera no matter what setting you use. The Megapixel race has diminished picture quality in the smaller cameras. The 6 MP cameras are more likely to give you a good image because you can use a faster shutter speed due to more light per pixel. A good thing as long as you aren't enlarging above 8x10. When Nikon made the D40s, doubling the MP of the D40 on the same size sensor, the consumers learned the pictures were easier to blur due to less pixel sensitivity and longer shutter speeds for the same picture. The D40 is still a very much sought after camera. $350 will get you a nice one with an 18-55mm Nikon lens. I believe the Canon 40D is similar in quality, but is 10MP and I don't know the used market on them. Yes, I'm partial to Nikon because i have used them for a while, know the controls on them, and have too many lenses to consider a different brand camera. Nikon-Canon, Chevrolet-Ford... you know the drill...

Len

I guess I completely misunderstood your question.
I thought you were discouraged because you could not control Picasa to crop as you desired. Like it is always forcing you to select 4x6 or 5x7 etc. and you were losing more that you wanted from you photo.
When you are working in the crop tool just go to the little pull down menu and select either "manual" or "custom". I forget what the name exactly is in Picasa. Then place your cursor anywhere in the photo and depress the left mouse button and drag. You can make the crop area any size and shape you want and also drag the area around inside the photo before making the actual crop.

Leslie Loc: Chicago Area

If you can shoot in raw, this will help with not loosing quality (which happens with jpeg). Also, when you photo edit, save as a tiff and again you won't loose quality as you edit. You only need to save as jpeg if you are emailing the photo.

Leslie

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

When I mentioned that my wife crops for Facebook, she's just doing it for getting rid of background clutter and making the faces bigger in the shots. She doesn't care if a resulting file turns out square, or rectangular, too tall, too wide, or whatever. Thus her cropping doesn't fit the normal print sizes that one can print like 4X6, 5X7, 8X10, etc. If I don't get a copy of her files before she does that to them (she's learning to make a copy first most of the time now) then they many times become unusable for printing because they're too short for the long side of print paper, or too wide for the short side of print paper, etc.

Facebook resamples your uploads to the correct 72dpi before displaying and she uses that feature. Whenever I upload to Facebook I do my own downsampling.

She has download-copied Facebook shots that friends took and wanted me to print them, which is not feasible for a decent print. She just doesn't understand but that's fine with me.

I don't think I implied that one crops to reduce for web use but if I did it wasn't intentional.

wrei

When you are cropping your pictures, make sure that you use a software that allows you to "crop to size". You instruct the software to crop the picture at a width of 5" and a height of 7" or so. The window that shows up to select the picture will define the area in the correct ratio needed to fit your frames.

Phrank Loc: Crystal Lake, Il.

FastStone Image Viewer (http://www.faststone.org/) is a free, image browser, converter and editor that allows you to crop to just about any paper size. It has numerous other features that digital camera users will appreciate.