PS and Neat Image questions

[PetPortraits]

I have just started using paintshop and neat image and would appreciate clarification on a couple of things please.

Firstly, I have a Canon S3IS and all my images come out at 180dpi. So far I havn't figured out how to change this in camera so I am changing the image size to 300dpi in PS. Should I do this before or after I run the image through Neat Image to reduce noise? At the moment I am doing it after running through neat image, but suddenly thought I might be adding more noise back in

Also, I am only using the auto profile on NI, does it make a big difference to use all the manual settings? Generally my photos have around 95% profile quality and 100% match (actually I am not really sure what this means, but I guess I nees to get my photos to 100%?). I generally only change the luminance chanel to 60-65% very occasionally to 75% - does it detract from the image if you go higher (other than the obvious visual change when it get plasticky looking).

Thanks heaps!

Michelle

 

[Digital Matt]

Changing the DPI does nothing to the file. It's only a number that tells the printer how densely to print the pixels together. The pixel dimensions are the measure of the resolution. Don't worry about dpi until you print.

In neat image, I normally just pick a spot for a profile, and let it auto fine tune, and it works great. I always copy this noise fixed image as a layer on top of my photo, in case I need to mask off any parts, or reduce opacity.

 

[PetPortraits]

Thanks for clarifying that Matt! So you don't make changes such as opacity beofre you reduce noise? What about cropping the noise filtered jpeg - does that make any difference or should cropping be done first? I read somewhere that any adjustments no matter how small to jpegs causes loss, but I am not sure how mcuh something like cropping would do.

M

 

[Big Mike]

Cropping by itself shouldn't affect the 'quality' of the JPEG image...but if you open the file, crop it, then save it...you are loosing a bit of data. The thing with JPEG files...every time you save it...you are compressing the file and loosing data. So if you plan to be saving an image and opening it again...it's a good idea to use a lossless format like TIFF or photoshop PSD. Then when you are done, save a copy as a JPEG for sending to print or web etc.

Realistically, if you save as a full quality JPEG, you aren't loosing much...so you could open and save many times before you even notice a difference...but if image quality is important...then it makes sense to keep as much data as possible.

Getting your workflow to work for you...can take a lot of practice and or trial and error. I usually crop pretty early in the process.

I like Matt's process of running the image though Neat Image, and then taking the resulting image and dropping it back onto the first image as a new layer in Photoshop. From there you can do do just about anything with it...use a layer mask, reduce it's opacity etc.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I have one editor that allows me to regulate the compression down to zero so that you can open and close it without loss. But that is only one editor out of ten I use. It was a freeware called photo filter. You can do a lot in it but not everything. Just in case you are interested. I suppose you could open it in photo paint do your work then cut and paste it to photo filter to save each time.