Newbie question - blurry images

Hi all,

Sorry for what must be an incredibly pathetic question, but I'm very new to
Photoshop (only having used "packages" like MS Paint before!) and I don't
think this is the sort of thing you can find in the help file. :-/

I'm just having a problem getting my images to look crisp, especially in
regard to text (and even at a 12-point font). Before I knew that .jpg
compression would cause an image to blur, so I would always save my images
as .bmp. Does Photoshop save .psd images with some kind of compression that
makes it blurry? I can't use .bmp 'cos of the lack of transparency. Is
there any way to get around this so that when I print my images I can
actually read the text? :-/

Many thanks in advance for your help,

Chris.

 

Blurryness has more to do with the camera lens and camera shake than the
software programs. Bitmaps (BMP) are for the simple drawing applets like
Paint. PSDs have no compression at all, as with TIFF and RAW are all
'loss-less' files - nothing is ever 'lost' if you adjust the picture.

Also your monitor is set at a resolution of 72ppi and pictures often
look a bit off on a monitor. Text on the picture will always suffer
because of the transfer from a vector graph (the true-type scaling
software) to pixel-based text. Your only way to minimize this is using
larger text on bigger pictures. Powerpoint presentations usually retain
the vector graphs so text remains crisp even when blown-up for
presentations.

If you are getting a lot of blurry pictures you should invest in a good
tripod and also check to see if the camera lens is clean. If your camera
has the feature to make an audible 'click' when the picture is taken,
try switching it on.

 

Where are you using this text? If you are trying to set large amounts of
text in Photoshop, you're making a mistake; use a word processor program.

Photoshop will by default "anti-alias" text. You can set whether or not
it does this, and how much anti-aliasing it uses, in the text options
window. Anti-aliasing makes curves look smoother but also makes the text
look blurry.

If you describe your goals and how you are using the Photoshop image, we
can offer more specific help. Are you printing these images? Are you
just looking at them on a screen? Are they for the Web? What are you
doing?

 

If your images are blurry when you print them I suspect that you are
probably printing at too low a resolution. If you accept the default 72
pixels per inch the picture and the text will probably be blurry. Try
changing the resolution to something about 200 to 300 PPI and then create
some text and print it and see how it looks.

 

in regards to text.

Are you talking about a photo that has text in it (like you took a picture
of a sign or something)

Or are you using the photoshop text feature?

If you are working with the PS text feature...there will always be some
slight blurriness when you jpg or giff or bmp it.

It all depends what dpi you are working at....as well your the pixel
dimentions of your piece.

IF you are working with relatively small fonts (12 pt)...and not using any
"text styles" in photoshop..i would work import my jpg (or what have you)
into another program (powerpoint, indesign, quark, illustrator or
coreldraw)...and work with my text there.