Picture resizing and printing query

[steve121]

Hi everybody.
I'm having problem with picture resizing to enable the picture to be printed on mugs. It seems my pictures are losing dpi's somewhere and not giving a good enough print quality. I'm using a Ricoh GX7000 through Corel Draw X5 for printing, the image comes a bit blurry and has lines through certain colours, red being the main culprit for lining, the feint lines can be seen on the paper more than on the mug after pressing but they are still there if you look close enough. I have done all the head clean stuff in case it was a head problem, but the lines still come out. I then noticed a warning, when I go to print via the prepress tab in Corel saying 'this image is less than 96dpi and may not be suitable for some purposes'. Can anybody recomend a way round this please?
As I mentioned in my intro post I'm fine with vinyl and grapics etc, but this sub lark is totaly new to me. Being a 'sticker monkey' is a lot easier than doing sublimation

Steve

[AdamB]

I use this quite a lot when someone gives me a mobile image and wants it on a jigsaw! It isn't perfect but it does help.

http://reshade.com/

There is an option at the link to do an online conversion for free but not sure what limitations it has (I use the installed program).

Adam

[smitch6]

its a pity there isn't anything like this for us mac users :)

[AdamB]

its a pity there isn't anything like this for us mac users :)


Like this you mean Steve?

http://www.macshareware.com/software/reshade_image_resizer

[steve121]

Thanks for quick answer. I think I have reshade lurking somewhere in my comp, I'll hava hunt.
Hmm, it seems I'm doing the resizing wrong, draging the image down to a workable size using the corner handles without upping the dpi, is a good way to lose definition. I'm off to have a play with my software and maybe if things get real bad......I'll have to read the manual. :confused:

Steve

[smitch6]

i just ordered one of them, it does photo enhancing as well :)
for $10 its worth every penny if it works

thanks adam :)

[John G]

What the photo like before resizing in coreldraw?

I sometimes do exactly as you do in coreldraw without any problems but normally on other peeps photos i'll do it in photoshop as I clean the photo up and sharpen if ness.
I don't have any problems with my own photos but normally when someone emails photos you can guarantee they'll be of poor quality and tiny file size - this is normally due to them copying the photo from either facebook or an avatar.

Cheers John

[steve121]

John. The piccy was from a phone and came to me via e-mail, I had to crop it to an area showing 6 faces from a photo in a restaurant. I did the intial cropping etc in paintshop pro and then moved it to my print computer. I reckon it lost detail in saving and moving the file. I'm now going to concentrate on using Coreldraw or photoshop for all manipulation of images. Also I'll sit down later and have a proper read through the book. Wifey reckons it's a male thing, we hate reading manuals.

[smitch6]

lol tell me about it steve i've just been playing with the re-sizer i bought
harder than you think isn't it

[John G]

If your saving as a jpeg then yes, every save and you'll lose some info - save as a photoshop file and its lossless, it doesn't lose any info.

It all depends on how good the original was and if its a crappy phone pic, 9 out of every 10 that I get send are, then your never going to get a brilliant end result. You can't polish a turd

[bikertec]

i just ordered one of them, it does photo enhancing as well :)
for $10 its worth every penny if it works

thanks adam :)How come yours is $10 and ours is £145. ???

[smitch6]

won't go into the mac war ;) lol

[AdamB]

How come yours is $10 and ours is £145. ???

It's just £145 for this one mate .................. there are also FREE versions available for the PC. Get a copy of 'webuser' out now and it's got a feature in there about them.

PC 1 - Mac 0 !

[logobear]

Having come from owning a photolab I am fully aware of issues about image resolution.
As a generalisation, images above
100 dpi will print acceptable results, with 300 dpi being the ideal.
Phone cameras can be lower resolution, and cropping will reduce pixel count further.
Images on facebook or sent by picture message are typically resampled down in resolution, and many images come from google images and are small too.
If you work to 100 dpi then simple maths will tell you how large you can realistically print it, and no amount of Photoshop will really improve.
Fractal image manipulation can improve the visual appearance, s-pline of focus magic can have their place.
Regarding the red lines I would suggest looking at the colour working space you are using, rgb or cmyk? We stick with sRGB over adobeRGB and have encountered these types of issue with conversions.