Image Quality - Large Hardcover vs. Large Softcover

I have seen several post mention that the large hardcover books are the best quality since they are printed on different paper than the Medium softcover books. Is this also true when compared to the Large softcover books?
I like the Large softcover format. Is there a difference in the quality between the large softcover and large hardcover books?
Thanks,
Jerry

Jerry:
The primary difference between the large and medium/small books was the printers used on the different sizes. The large were printed on a different type of printer that gave better results. The paper appears to be the same, at least for my medium and large books. I would think the soft cover would be the same image print quality as the hard cover.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

Similar Messages

Photo book print quality: large vs. medium (both softcover)

hello all,
I just wanted to share my experience about the difference in print quality between the medium softcover and large (in my case, softcover) books from iPhoto, something I wondered about before I took the plunge and ordered them.
I recently received copies of both, ordered a week apart, both using the 300 dpi hack, but unfortunately of diff't photos in each, so the comparison won't be too scientific.
First impressions: the photos in the large softcover seemed to me better than the medium. You can detect some very fine dots with the naked eye, in the places where a color shades into white. Overall, not objectionable at all, especially at a reasonable viewing distance. Akin to a decent/average inkjet photo. Meanwhile, the medium format struck me as having a worse print resolution, like a photo in a newspaper or cheaply printed magazine. The halftone pattern seemed more noticeable.
However, on closer inspection, side by side, I can see the halftone dots in each, and I wonder if they're actually printed at the same resolution. I think it was partly the bigger size of the average photo in the large book that convinced me it had a better resolution, and the smaller photos in a medium book can make the whole thing look bad. Also, I can definitely detect banding from the halftone pattern in the medium book that I don't notice in the large; but could this be due to the subject matter in the medium (blurred washes of muted color) more than a print resolution difference? Perhaps.
My conclusion: while it could be that the print resolution on the large is slightly better, I suspect my perception of the quality difference is based more on photo size and subject matter (sharp focus w/patterns, texture, moderate detail rather than empty color looks best). Still, despite my suspicion that the print resolution is the same, I can't shake the sense the large looks a little better.
Which is too bad in a way, as I think the medium has a lot going for it: it's cheaper than the large, and I actually much prefer to have a series of single, full-bleed images at 6x8 than two or three or more cluttered together on a bigger page for the same price. Plus I find the peek-a-boo cutout on the cover of the large book a bit cheesy.
So if you're going to go medium, I would definitely stay away from those six-photos-a-page layouts, especially if you have people in your small photos: their features will be degraded enough they start to look a little funny/unrecognizable. Bigger is better.
And if anyone has the same photo at the same size in two differently sized books to compare, that would settle things.
Also, I had a number of grayscale scans that I converted to rgb before adding to iPhoto, and the b&w photos printed in the book look great. While I would describe them as 'cool', I don't detect a noticeable color cast, and the blacks are decent.
Overall, as an amateur whose expectations were aimed a bit low, I'm pleased with both for the price, and will look to large for special occasions, medium for everyday photosets.

You're confusing two similar though technically different things.
You have the dpi (dot's per inch in the raster file) resolution of the images (assuming the image will not be reduced or enlarged) of 300 dpi - that is a static resolution and it one of two resolution settings that affect the quality of a printed image.
I was told the books are printed cmyk with screening so the other resolution that you have no control over is the "LPI" or "Lines per Inch" of the printing process. The CMYK separations are each printed at a different angle to achieve the full color effect.
The soft cover books appear to be printed at a lesser lpi than the hard cover books which would give the images a courser look to them.
I have not compared the books under a loop so this is going on what I was told.

When using Lightroom Book module for Blurb book making, why do I keep getting a low image quality message if it's supposedly accessing my large raw files in my library?

When using Lightroom Book module for Blurb book making, why do I keep getting a low image quality message if it's supposedly accessing my large raw files in my library?

I think I've solved my problem with a Google Search. I came across a free slide show generator
(contributions requested) that shows much higher quality slide shows than either iPhoto or Aperture 3.
You click on a folder of jpegs and it almost immediately generates thumbnails and within a few seconds
I can be viewing a full screen, tack sharp, slideshow of all of the files in the folder. Much sharper than
I'm used to seeing.
I think I'll keep the Aperture 3 and use if for the purpose it's intended for in the future. I'll also redo the
image preview files to the small size it started with and then I'll copy all of the files I'm interested in from
iPhoto into a separate folder on another disk. I'll use Aperture to catalog and to perform image manipulations
on but I won't try to use it as an iPhoto replacement. I don't think I'll be using iPhoto much as an image
viewer in the future either after I finish moving my favorite pictures to the Phoenix Slides folder.
The name of the free program is Phoenix Slides. It's free to download and try, free to keep (though I
think you'd want to pay the small amount requested) and fast. My pictures have never looked so good
before.
http://blyt.net/phxslides/
Message was edited by: Jimbo2001

Shipping on large softcover book?

How much is shipping on a large softcover book? Also, are the pages double sided?

More problems have been encountered in the medium and small books in regards to image quality. You can use Pref Setter to edit the iPhoto preference file and boost the dpi settings to 300 for the bolded items below:
BookTargetDPI - 300
BookTargetImageDPI - 150
BookTargetMediumDPI-300
BookTargetMediumImage - 150
BookTargetSmallDPI - 300
BookTargetSmallImageDPI - 300
BookWarningImageDPI - 130
PrintImageDPI - 720
PrintWarningImageDPI - 140
That will help some. It seems the biggest problem, as far as we can determine, is that it's a different printing operation for the small and medium books than for the large. But, as I said, it's speculation. Personally, I've had no problems with large, hardcover books. Medium softcover did have a halftone pattern visible to the naked eye in the images. It took an eye loop at about 8X to see the pattern in the large books.

IPhone 4 Video Mode image is larger than camera mode. Normal or Bad?

Hey there, im using an iphone 4 White. I start to browse through my device.
But something caught my eyes. Which is the video Mode.
So this how it goes, when i view my device in camera mode everything is normal.
But i switch to video mode, the image became large. Its like the device automatically zoom in..
Becaus of this, each time im taking a video, i need to take a step back..
So what im asking now is, is there any chances that it can be fix... For what i know, when im using my iphone 3gs everything works fine.
So Do help me find a solution to my curiousity.. Thank You.

I'll try to give you an explanation; I hope it's clear.
When taking a photo the iphone uses the full camera sensor (2592 pixels by 1936 pixels).
Which gets the full wide view of the lens.
In order to record video the iphone appears to only use the middle of the sensor to record (1280 pixels by 720 pixels); and it ignores the pixels around it.
Which then cuts down the field of view by almost half; and that looks like it has zoomed in.
Have a look at my diagram, red is the photo mode, blue is video mode:
This is a limitation of the hardware, as it might not get faster data from the sensor to allow the camera to shoot higher resolution, or a wider field of view.
It actually allows the iphone camera to not have as apparent aliasing issues, but certainly lowers the field of view.
Other cameras can "skip" lines to record video.
This allows for much wider field of view, but it does introduce pronounced aliasing issues (as information is "lost" inbetween the lines).
So this probably won't be fixed in the iPhone 4; although video was "added" to the older iphones by developers, it isn't likely to be that easy on the iphone4.
But you will probably hear of a higher pixel count camera in the iPhone 5, and it will possibly be able to take higher resolution video; but in a similar way it will probably only use part of the sensor.
I hope this makes sense?

Web Appearance Large Images Extra Large: how to increase size

Hi!
When selecting Web > Appearance > Large Images > Extra Large
Lightroom exports the fotos 1275 px wide.
I would like to have them quite a big larger - where can this setting be edited?
Thanks a lot for your time!
Andreas Weber
www.motiondraw.com

Take a look at this page....
http://lightroomers.com/lightroom-question-of-the-week-advanced-web-settings/123/
Depending on which web gallery you are using, the advanced settings may do what you need.
John

How to improve image quality for book

I recently had a book printed from iPhoto 9 (large, hardcover) and the images in the book seem dull and dark compared to the actual images. For example, in one image of a church taken at dusk you can clearly see the outline of the church, including some details, and even people in front of it - but in the book, this area is completely black. I have had books printed before from iPhoto8 and had been happy with the past results.
Apple is refunding my purchase and letting me submit the book again, but told me if I don't edit the photos, I may have the same issue (though they also said it could have been a printer issue that day). Customer support did agree that the image quality itself is good. So, my question is, before I resubmit this book - in general, what attributes or combination of attributes are best to change to make the images more vibrant and not dark when printed for the book (ie. increase color saturation and exposure?)
Thank you.

Thanks. I did indeed preview the book before, and I have followed their tips. As, I said, I have purchased several books in the past and no issue. Apple even sent a couple pictures back to me as an attachment to show what they received, and they matched what I sent, but NOT what was printed. What printed is definitely much darker and in many cases you can't even make out the detail that you could in the images (including the ones they sent back to me for comparison). Maybe the printer really was off. I'll try a few enhancements and try again.

How to prevent degradation of image quality when pasting for collage?

I am trying to do a collage (of family heirloom old pharmacy jars and bottles) from – eventually – about a dozen separate images in Photoshop CS6. (A variety of sizes, resolutions, qualities and file types will go into the collage, but I wish to retain the image quality of each component at its original level or very close to the original level, even those in some cases the original quality is marginal.)
I have set up in Photoshop a “background document” at 300 dpi of the right dimensions to paste into my InDesign document (5.1 X 3.6 cm)
I have tried >six approaches, all of which have resulted in a degradation of the subsequently pasted-in image (not just slight, but very obvious).
Clearly I’m missing something fundamental about image quality and handling images so that degradation is minimised or eliminated.
(1) (1) Using an internet video as a guide – using Mini Bridge to open all the images in PS6 as tabs along the top of the workpage. Then dragging the first one into the base document. It comes across huge – ie I only see a small fraction of the image. Any attempt to Edit/Transform/Scale (to 14% of the pasted image, which in this case is a jpg of 3170 x 1541 at 1789 dpi, 4.5 x 2.2 cm) results in an image that looks horribly degraded compared with what I pasted (open in another window).
(2) (2) Same thing happens if I have each image as a new layer on top of the base document.
(3) (3) I tried changing the image that I had put into Layer 2 into a Smart Object and then resized it. No further ahead – it still looks horrible.
(4) using a different image [an 800 dpi JPG 3580 x 1715 Pixels, print size (from dpi) 11.4 x 5.4 cm which despite those parameters is of barely acceptable quality] I have tried (a) changing the resolution to 300 dpi, (b) keeping the number of pixels the same (which results in a dpi of over 3000 but doesn't fix the problem; (c) changing the dimensions to a length of 3 cm [about right for the collage] .... but no matter what I do, by the time the image is positioned correctly on the layer, the image quality has gone from barely acceptable to absolutely horrible. That usually happens during the final resizing (whether by numbers or shift-dragging the corners of the image).
Grateful for any step-by-step strategy as to how best to accomplish the end – by whatever means. (Or even in a different program!). Basically, even though I've used images for many years in many contexts, I have never fundamentally understood image size or resolution to avoid getting into such messes. Also, I'm on a very steep learning curve with Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator all at the same time - these all seem to handle images differently, which doesn't help. [Not to mention MS Publisher, which I'm locked into for certain other things...]

For the individual images, don't worry about the ppi or as you call it dpi (ppi is the correct term BTW) only worry about the pixel dimensions. If the pixel dimensions gets too low, it will look horrible as there is not enough data to work with.
Therefore the final document that will house all the other images must be large enough in pixel dimensions to handle the smaller images at a high enough dimension that they will look good.
That being said, if you can load your images in as smart objects as any scaling that takes place samples the original sized document. Making it possible to scale it down to a size that is barely visible and then reset the size back to where it was and have no loss of data.
Where the ppi will come into play is when you are ready to print the final document, that is when the ppi will tell the printer at what size to print the document on the page.
If your collage will span more than one page, you may want to do this in InDesign. All images are linked to their respective container (similar process as smart object in theory) Though I beleive smart objects are embedded which is debatable.
In both InDesign and Illustrator, scaling the image in the document affects the ppi of the image, scaling down would increase the ppi whereas scaling upward would decrease the ppi as the number of pixels (the pixel dimension) has not changed.
With photoshop, you have a choice, when scaling the entire document, you have the option to resample the image, doing so affects the pixel dimension and in that instance would degrade the image when scaling downward and bluring the image when scaling up. As photoshop is removing pixels when scaling down and guessing the neighbor pixels should be when scaling upward.
But, when resampling is off, the pixel dimensions do not change and therefore there is no degration or bluring.
Why this happens has to do with simple math.
inches x ppi = pixels
Knowing any two of the above forumula will give you the third.
When resampling is enabled, the pixels can change and when it is disabled, it is fixed so only the other two values can change.

Image quality poor when using "fit in window" view

Hello,
i´m getting familiar with PS CS3 Demo and what buffles me is the poor quality of the downsized view of large images. I loaded a 8 MP JPEG image from a digital camera and it looks good in 100%, but when i choose to view the whole image to fit the window (33,33% in my case), the resulting "downsampled" image is very jaggy and pixelated. I use a freeware image viewer called Xnview that gives me a far superior view when viewing large images downsized - i can even choose to select a "HQ" mode so those images get resampled to look better. It it normal that PS does not offer such a thing (or did i not see it?) and delivers such poor visual quality or is there something wrong with my PC?
Thanks for your help.

Though 6.735, 12.5, 25 and 50% views usually are OK too. "Image quality" is great, though sometimes deceivingly so. I guess I don't understand sampling enough to tell you why 33% looks bad (rounding errors, I suppose). But 66% makes sense. You're trying to stuff 3 pixels into the space of 2.
Dave, what are the advantages to these nearest neighbor views instead of bicubic (or even bi-linear). Just speed?
J

Image quality issues - Sony Handycam (MPEG) to iMovie / iDVD

I have read through dozens of posts but the recommendations vary widely and am hoping I can get some guidance specific to my situation. The image quality I am getting from home movies I edit in iMovie11 and burn to DVD in iDVD are far inferior to the original material.
I have a Sony DCR-TRV17. This camera is a little over 10 years old. It is a miniDV with 500 lines resolution, 680K gross pixels and uses MPEG. While not HD, the image quality is exceptional. The DVDs I used to create using my Sony Viao likewise looked fantastic. But the results I get from iMovie and iDVD are on par with VHS -- very poor, especially in low-light.
I hope the issue is just the settings when I import, edit (iMovie) and share to iDVD. I generally use the default settings, and often alternate settings don't seem to be selectable. It also sounds from other posts like iMovie sacrifices quality for reduced file size and increased simplicity? I would appreciate help with the following:
1) Please list the settings I should be adjusting from default when I a) import, b) edit in iMovie11 and c) share to iDVD and burn -- and the recommended settings for each
2) Is there a process I should be trying? Should I be creating test DVDs using different settings at each stage and then reviewing various setting combinations to find the best one?
3) I will most probably buy an HD camcorder very soon, and plan to burn to Blue Rays. I have no problem with going ahead and buying Final Cut and an external drive to burn Blue Rays. Should I just go ahead and do it and get away from iMovie / iDVD entirely. Will Final Cut solve this issue for my old miniDVs without a whole lot of hair pulling? Or will I still have to tinker with a bunch of settings or convoluted processes to get it "right." I never had to tinker with settings on my Viao. Really expected Mac software to be more user friendly…
Thanks very much for any help or advice!

On Import you could try unchecking Optimize video and choose Full Size. Your disk space however will get eaten up incredibly quickly choosing these settings as each hour of video = 40GBytes of disk space. So be forewarned about how big those files will expand as they come off the MiniDV tapes.
Another thing you will immediately see a difference in is how you move files from iMovie to iDVD. Share to iDVD while named in an intuitive way, is NOT the best way to get good quality DVDs out of iMovie. Instead you want to Share to Media Browser. Choose the Large Size setting. Then quit iMovie. Open iDVD, click the Media button, the Movies button. Find your project listed under the iMovie star icon and drag it into the iDVD project. Burn the Disc and see if you get a higher quality disk by Sharing to Media Browser instead of Share to iDVD.
If you choose a Blu-Ray burner, also get a copy of Roxio Toast. The encoding to Blu-ray that Toast provides will be top notch and prevent you from making mistakes as the recordable Blu-ray disks are more expensive than DVDs. So every mistake will be expensive.

5D Mark II raw image quality

There's been a post by A Museman (earlier this year) on "5D Mark II raw image quality" that attempts to discuss the differences and problems with Aperture with flat / poor quality raw photo's as compared to sharper, clearer, more saturated pictures processed in Digital Photo Professional.
That thread "seems" to have faded in discussion. I am still having problems with Aperture and raw photo quality from my Canon 5D Mark II camera.
Can someone shed some light on this subject, in that has the problem been been identified, validate, resolved or does the problem still exist (as it does for me).
This problem is causing me a lot of frustration since I want to use Aperture because of its organization and potential processing capability. Although I get superior results with DPP, it does cause a lot of file storage requirements by having large raw and jpeg files for the same picture (in essence it doubles the file storage requirements).

On my end there are no issues. I get absolutely beautiful portrait renderings out of aperture and my 5d2 - the dynamic range is amazing with this combo. I can often adjust exposure 3+ stops if needed before getting into too much noise.
The best output I've ever had - completely smokes the ACR rendering of skin tones.
Aperture 2 doesn't apply the "Picture Style" preset to the raw decode like DPP does. This makes raw images look flat in comparison to the camera rendered jpeg - shoot in "faithful" mode and you will have a pretty much exact match.
So My quick recipe to match the default setting is adding a little vibrancy, definition, and contrast. FWIW I would turn off the auto lighting optimizer, and the highlight tone priority if using aperture.

Image quality warning - can I shrink the photos

I have a 8x10 photo book that I'm trying to build using some old images of mine. The resolution on the old images is 1024 x 768 so iPhoto gives me the image quality resolution if I try to print 1 or 2 photos on a single page. Since I don't want fuzz images when I print the page I'd like to reduce the size of the images so they be okay when I print. iPhoto doesn't give you the option to reduce the size of the image. Can I through another application do some sort of workaround to get the images smaller with some sort of background to workaround this?
I wish iPhoto had a little more flexibility in this area.
MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

iPhoto "books" require you image be 300 DPI (dots per inch).
Your Mac display is 72 dpi so your 1024X768 image would need to be made 4 times smaller in size. But this will still not get you 300 dpi and iPhoto will still display a warning no matter what.
GraphicConverter ($35) can change the dot per inch (it says ppi pixels per inch) in your image. It will also reduce it is size by a factor of 4 (very small image).
If you have the original images it would be better to scan them again and set the file to become 300 dpi. More work but larger prints in your book.

Image quality takes a hit in Word PDF conversion despite Compression being Off (Acrobat 9)

When converting a Word doc to PDF, the image quality for embedded pictures seems to be taking a hit. In the resultant PDF, the large pictures have jagged edges, even though when I increase the size in the Word doc the picture looks smooth and high quality.
Under preferences I've changed the Conversion Settings>Images to have Downsampling off for Color/Grayscale/Monochrome images, and also set Compression to Off. I've also tried setting Compression to Automatic (JPEG) with Maximum quality for Color/Grayscale. Both Compression Off and Maximum quality seem to have almost the same image quality, even though Compression Off doubles the size of the file. Neither has quality quite at the level it is in the Word doc.
Is there some way to have the image quality for pictures in the PDF equal what it looks like in Word? Are there any more settings I should be aware of?
I have Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and Office 2007 on Vista 64.

What's the original file format of the images you're inserting into Word, and are they at 100% scale?
We've seen issues with scaled high-res images (like header logos) which printed to PDF perfectly with a GIF or JPEG image, but failed dismally with a PNG even though the image resolution was identical and on-screen view was the same. Word has a quirky way of handling image data sent to the print spool compared to what's shown on-screen.

Photo image quality in iMovie

Hi ... I am attempting to create an iMovie that will include photos and video footage.
I read that the best presentation quality for the photos would be achieved creating a slideshow in iPhoto and exporting the slideshow, and importing the resulting Quicktime movie into iMovie. This would bypass issues created during the iMovie image rendoring process.
I just did a brief test run using the above steps. The image quality in the Qtime video was not very good.
Am I missing a step in here someplace?
The final show will be played on a large screen, so I am very concerned about image sharpness.
Thank you in advance.
Message was edited by: David Ris

I'm not sure what you mean by media folder, a folder of JPEG files is a media folder as is a folder of audio files.
More Info:
When dragging any folder of high quality photos to iMove it has to change it from stills to video. Apples and oranges; a conversion takes place. I just experimented by exporting iPhoto file of high resolution photos to QuickTime changed the QuickTime resolution from 640 x 480 to 1280 x 800 then imported it into iMovie. Then I exported iPhoto full resolution pictures to my desktop and then dragged them to the time line. These photos have text in the pictures. The original photos are 2581 x 1836 when I played the slide show from iMovie I could not tell the difference from the QuickTime movie that I placed in the time line and the full quality photos exported to a folder on my desktop then dragged to the same timeline as I did the QuickTime movie. However the QuickTime movie played independently in QuickTime was far superior to the QuickTime Movie played in iMovie on my computer. My monitor is set at 1680 x 1050.
Text in iMove will show Jaggies when viewed at close working range as I mentioned in an earlier post you must view iMovie at the proper viewing distance because your slides have been converted to video. Drag one of your slides to the desktop you will see that it becomes; example > Still 10.dv > in QuickTime format, no longer a JPEG file. Once you export your slide show to QuickTime you don't have the editing ease of moving your pictures position, changing slide duration, music etc.
For others to view your movies you will eventually have to burn your slide show in iDVD unless you are using your computer and a projector. An hour long iMovie can become a very large file about 10 GB but will play very nicely from a computer. Burn that movie to iDVD it will become about 1GB.
Dick

Poor Image quality in iDVD from iMovie

After creating a video in iMovie using photos, video clips, transitions, music, and Ken Burns, things look great. Everything looks fine in iMovie ('09). I then export it to iDVD to create the menus, etc. So far so good. After burning the disc, the picture quality is really horrible, especially the photos using Ken Burns. I do not know how to describe it....wavy, pixilated, something. The video used, taken using a digital camcorder is tolerable if I remember to deinterlace. What do I have to do to get these pics to look right? IF I export in iMovie using Quicktime, the resulting .MOV is fine....looks great. After exporting to iDVD, it looks awful.....Any help would be appreciated....thank you.
jrsorte

Chris,
not using any de-interlacing
Both iMovie 08 and iMovie 09 only use one field of a DV video frame. iMovie 5 and earlier used both frames. I'm not sure that using just one field makes a lot of difference when the content goes through mpg-2's heavy compression to make a DVD in iDVD.
As far a still images are concerned, the best sizes for NTSC DVDs are 720x540 pixels for standard video and 854x480 pixels for widescreen. Going to larger image sizes can actually reduce the image quality on a DVD.

Image Quality - Large Hardcover vs. Large Softcover

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