Concerned with picture quality....

[katbean]

I am concerned about whether or not the pictures I am putting in my album are of good quality of not. They have been accumulated over years, and I know that some of them might be from the internet from websites like Facebook, some are directly from a camera and others will be scanned. I know I could look at each file and determined it's size etc...but is there any way to know what the picture quality will be when its printed? I have noticed that when I drag the pictures from atop where they are all listed and into the book, some of them are really blurry when I put them in the album but then they clear up after a few seconds. Does anyone know if this is some kind of indication of the quality, or does the program automatically adjust the photos? I am very concerned, I don't want to pay for something that has pixilated pictures all over it :(

[smuddlepuddle]

don't worry about the first few seconds of blurriness, thats just the program being slow to load your photo and has nothing to do with how it will look. if you want to know whether your pics will be pixelated when printed you have to know the resolution (basically pixelated = low resolution). to find this just divide the pixel dimensions by the how big you think the picture will be when printed (eg if your picture is 1600 by 1200 and you want a full page in the paperback pocketbook then divide 1600 by 7.75 inches or 1200 by 5.75 to get approx 200). the folks at mypublisher say a resolution of 180 or above is acceptable, if you want perfect pics though i would guess you need about 250.

i'm pretty sure unless you get the originals from your friends that facebook photos won't look good any bigger than a few inches wide (facebook automatically reduce the pixel dimensions). scanning will give you perfect pictures as long as your scanner is set correctly.

sorry if i made that sound confusing, hope it helps.

(forgot to mention to find out the pixel dimensions of a photo go to the folder it is in on your computer and click on the photo file once and the grey bar at the bottom should tell you)

[Cruiser]

If you get a blue line around your picture and the blurry happens then corrects itself, your picture should print just fine. The software does that to automatically adjust the picture to the mold you are using. If your picture looks crisp and clear on your monitor, it should print the same way in MyPublisher's Bookmaker program.

Some pictures if taken from the internet are not of the quality to make a good print. They are usually very low in resolution. However, drag them into Bookmaker and see if you get a blue line. It might just work. I scan my old pictures at 1200 dpi then adjust them in Photoshop and save them at 200 dpi which prints just fine in Bookmaker. If the picture is very small, I save it at 350 dpi. Many of my old pictures I am scanning are blurred already but they are family memories so I keep them knowing that they are going to look blurred in the book.

A good way to check if you are on the right track is to order a 20 page paperback with some of your pictures in it. For less than $20 you can figure out if you are processing them correctly.

There are so many posts on this forum discussing picture quality that I won't go into resolution, size, etc., but I do recommend that you spend a day reading some of the recent posts. Many of us have posted based on our experiences with MyPublisher. I've personally made 15 Deluxe books and 5 Classic. With each, I'm learning more and more.

If you have any questions, please ask. One of us will be happy to help.

[mypublisher]

I agree with Cruiser - my only note of caution would be regarding images taken from Websites like Facebook that are not print quality. Many times those web images are only 72dpi and screen resolution. Use your computers built in photo viewer and zoom in on the image to about 300% - if it looks blurry or pixelated, that's a good way to tell. Scanned images will be fine, as will the ones from your camera.

Sincerely,
MyPublisher