Blurry pixelated frustrated! help!

Question

Super frustrated....I have one psd that i need to add into another.  i need to shrink it a bit, and then post it online.
it looks great in photoshop, but when i post it it looks awful. the original pic is fine, but it's the logo that ends up looking like trash.
i've checked both files, and both are 8-bit, both are 72dpi.
I've tried everything i can think of:
**click-dragging from one into another
**File-Place..
**screenshot (shift-command-4)
and when i post it, it looks like garbage
any help?  is there a way to post a pic?

Answer 1

Hi,
I'm still not completely sure what is wrong about this image, since i have not seen the source images (maybe a screen shot that you post on here of your PSD file open in photoshop would be more helpful than the output compressed/resized image that looks bad--so we can see what your good looking starting point was in the PSD and what went wrong in the output version). Regardless, that problem you are having sounds to me like an image compression problem.
But, before we get into that, where are the sources of these two composited images coming from? You said that the resolution is 72 dpi---that is sort of irrelevant. What matters is the pixel dimensions of the document. For example: you could have a document that is 50 inches by 50 inches at 72 ppi, and the amount of pixels would be 3600x3600 (50x72=3600). Or you could have 12 inches by 12 inches at 300 ppi, and the amount of pixels would still be 1200x1200. Make sense? So ppi isnt important really---its the amount of pixels in the image total. If the pixel amount is low, then you are bound to have a crappy image. Figuring out Pixels Per Inch (ppi) is really only important for printing reasons--or as they call it in the world of printing, dpi (dots per inch--as in dots of ink per inch).
That said--if one of those things--like that gray dominatrix looking prop---was produced originally at a low resolution--like maybe 200x200, and then scaled up a lot, to like maybe 2000x2000--then that will make it look bad. You'll get all sorts of blurry garbage going on because photoshop will try to interpolate it (smooth out the jaggies), but since it is only a computer and not a human with an artistic eye, it doesn't really do a terrific job. So check into that as pixel amount may be contributing to your problem.
All that said, I think the main source of your problem is compression, since you are claiming that the image looks great in your PSD in Photoshop. Looking at the image above, I see a million crappy compression artifacts in there. What I would do first is try saving it as a jpeg and getting the quality up on the slider bar to around 10 or 12. That's a simple way of compressing a PSD that gives pretty decent results. A more complicated, but effective way of compression an image (especially for use on a website) would be "Save for Web". When you do that, you will have many options to choose from. Play around with them and see what works best.
One thing that I am seeing that is affecting your image is loss of color. Whatever setting was used to compress that thing did not allow many colors to be used and when that happens, you get a very nintendo-y looking image. For instance, edges of an object only appear soft in a digital image because the pixels that comprise those edges taper off in value. Say the object (that leather thing) is light gray and it is on a black background. The pixels on the gray thing start at light gray, and then as they get closer to the edge, the pixels get darker and darker---to blend with the black background. If you dont allow your compression settings to use many colors, then photoshop will have an impossible time making edges look nice because it will not have all those gradual colors to help the edge blend with the background. Thats why it will look all jaggy and 1989-ish. Make sense?
  Also, experiment with the "quality" option at the BOTTOM of the preset window in addition to whatever quality options may be at the top. The bottom drop down menu refers to resampling interpolation options---that is, what methodology Photoshop uses to turn your higher resolution images into lower ones or vice versa (you said you were scaling down the image). You will get different results with each one.
Hope that helps.