When I take pics for the web, should I take them at high res and then adjust them in Photoshop or just stick to low res photos. I read somewhere that the higher the res, the more detail is shown even when reduced to 72 dpi. Thanks KC Troise kct@rivnet.net

-- KC Troise (kct@rivnet.net), September 13, 1999

Answers

To get this thread rolling, I say take 'em at low res simply because you can store more in the limited memory of the camera.

What's so important about getting the best detail when web images by definition are low res, with high jpeg compression ratios for fast downloading times -- if you're designing your web efficiently.

Web photos are usually not expected to be masterpieces -- unless, of course you are trying to sell your skills as a photographer, and even then you would usually try to keep the quality down on MOST of your images simply because you'd rather have people buy the original from you rather than have them steal it off the web.

-bruce

-- bruce komusin (bkomusin@bigfoot.com), September 15, 1999.

It will depend a lot on the camera: Some higher-res cameras produce poor low-res pictures. - One example is the Toshiba PDR-M4: A great 2 megapixel camera, but it's low-res shots are pretty blocky. OTOH, as mentioned in the post above, you're likely to be scaling them down anyway for the web, as most web shots are less than even 640x480. Third thought though: In our own product shooting, even though the pics are ending up small, we often want to crop into the image a fair bit, so have been using a 1.4 megapixel cam, and are now happy to be using a 2 megapixel one...

-- Dave Etchells (editor@imaging-resource.com), September 16, 1999.

Here are some of the trade-offs I've run into. If you're only ever going to use them on the web the lower res is probably the way to go. I haven't seen any difference between re- sized 1280/960 and 640/480 shots. One exception is where the camera adds further JPEG compression at low-res mode than high res. I like to adjust compression on the PC to get the final image quality and file size right and you can't add detail if the camera throws it away. Some cameras (I use the Canon A50) provide additional benefits when you go into low-res mode. The A50, for example, boosts the effective ISO to 400 which can give you better low-light capability with faster shutter speeds than you would get in high res mode. However, if someone really likes one of your web photos, you'll be able to give them a better print if the original was taken at high res.

- Dennis

-- Dennis Pereira (dpereira@ultranet.com), September 16, 1999.