cropping

[Jessica]

Hi, I'm having a problem...
When I crop an image, small squares appear in the cropped picture. And this is zoomed out at 100% image size. Can anyone help, this is a something that needs to be fixed...
Thank you !

(Like this) :

[Lee]

Cat is too heavy...

The cat's weight is causing the pixels to distort and be pulled out of place!

If you're referring to the area around the left eye, I believe you're seeing pixelation artifacts. The image is just 818 pixels high by 614 pixels wide. SBM probably applies some form of compression algorithm to minimize file sizes. Applying a compression algorithm to a small image can result in ugly results. Have you tried printing it? My guess is that it will print OK. Your mileage may vary...

Lee

https://www.thedigitalphotoguy.com

[Corey]

Cat is too heavy...

Hee har! Love that cat!

But seriously, I think Jessica is referring to that square around her eye. That shouldn't be happening. Before we look at this, are you 100% certain that isn't part of the original picture (albeit it imperceptible) Jessica?

[Jessica]

thank you for your answers.
When I import the picture in sbm on it's original format, the picture looks fine. It only happened after I cropped it. After posting my message, I tried cropping the picture with a different program, and it worked perfect. I also noticed it happened on other cropped pictures on my templates, but it doesn't show as much because the others aren't as big. As to the quality of the picture and pixels, my camera is only 2 megapixels. But my bf's digital cam is 6 megapixels, which is super good, and it still does the same thing...
Here is the original picture (already cropped):

[Corey]

OK let me forward this to the programmers and see what their thoughts are.

[Brett]

What if you remove the shape from the photo? Are you sure that the squares are not part of the shape that is bign applied to it? Try turning off the custom shape and see if the squares still appear. Also, if you publish the project to images, does the same effect show up in the published images or just in the design environment?

[Lorne]

Jessica, can you send me the original picture - the one that isn't cropped yet? (email it to "lorne at indigorose.com")

Also, what are the steps that you took when that happened? In as much detail as you can provide. I've been trying to make it happen on my computer here, using the same photo shape and the shadow and everything, but it always turns out perfect.

[Jessica]

I'll try your suggestions Brett, and I'll get back to you guys.
Lorne, if I can't fix it with Brett's tips, I'll send you the original picture. Step by step, what I did was this:
1- I imported the photo by clicking (like usually) the 'insert photo' icon on the tool bar.
2- I stretched the photo to make it the size I want on my page (background set to medium screen size), which is basically almost the height of the scrapbook sheet.
3- I applied the shape. The picture still looked fine.
4- I cropped the image, and the squares appeared !! I tried both keeping the proportions of the initial image, and without keeping the proportions for cropping. Same result in both cases.

And yes, if I publish to images, the squares are still there. The picture I posted first is from my published files. This doesn't happen all the time... Most of my pictures are cropped, and I noticed this problem on two templates so far.
Thanks for helping. I'll try a few things and get back to you today... or most probably tomorrow !

[Lee]

Try without stretching the image

...As to the quality of the picture and pixels, my camera is only 2 megapixels. But my bf's digital cam is 6 megapixels...

What resolution are the original images? Your DCs are 2MP and 6MP but if the resolution (size) is set too low, the original image may still be too small to be stretched and cropped.

A 2MP DC produces images at 1600 pixels x 1200 pixels. Your image is 818 x 614 (appx 500,000 pixels, 0.5MP). Since you stretched the image to start, there's no telling how many pixels you actually started with. Try this without stretching the image. If it works then, you know the image has too few pixels to start.

A 6MP image shouldn't have this problem unless the resolution has been set too low. I have a 6MP camera that can be set as low as 400,000 pixels (1536x1024, 0.4MP). If your bf's DC is set to such a low resolution, it could produce images worse than your 2MP DC.

The first thing I advise my students is to set their DC to the largest size (highest resolution) and best quality (lowest compression). This will help avoid pixelation problems.

Lee

https://www.thedigitalphotoguy.com

[Jessica]

I stretch the picture not because it is originally too small, but because when you add a picture on sbm, the size is small (i don't know if i'm being clear... The image is originally larger than my pc screen, but when added on sbm, it's only a small rectangle, smaller than half a scrapbook page. So I need to stretch it to get it to a bigger size.)
anyhow, I tried many things again, and this problem happens on pictures that I ''sharpen'' using the ''sharpen'' option in the effect menu.

[Granny]

Jessica, when you bring something into SBM, go to view, zoom, and pick 100%. That usually will set things on the true size. It helps me a lot.

Granny

[Jessica]

thanks granny, but with or without the zoom, the problem's the same.

[Lorne]

I stretch the picture not because it is originally too small, but because when you add a picture on sbm, the size is small (i don't know if i'm being clear... The image is originally larger than my pc screen, but when added on sbm, it's only a small rectangle, smaller than half a scrapbook page. So I need to stretch it to get it to a bigger size.)

When you add a really large photo, Scrapbook MAX will automatically size it to something that is appropriate for the page size. Otherwise, when you added a big 8 megapixel photo, it would come in at four times the size of the page. (You'd have to zoom way out or scroll the page just to resize the photo smaller all the time.)

But don't worry, you can resize the image larger without losing any quality.

For every image you add, a high-quality original is kept behind the scenes. Whenever you resize something in Scrapbook MAX, it resizes using that original version. This is done so you can resize photos over and over without losing any quality.

(If you add an image that is much larger than the page, the behind-the-scenes original will be resized down to the maximum size that will fit on the page. This is done for performance reasons, so you aren't working with a huge 8 megapixel image when your page can only fit 1 megapixel on it.)

anyhow, I tried many things again, and this problem happens on pictures that I ''sharpen'' using the ''sharpen'' option in the effect menu.

Hmmm, that's a good clue. Some filtering algorithms can produce artifacts when they're applied to images, and the resizing that happens when you crop might make it more noticeable.

Can you describe the exact steps that you take when this happens? (The more detailed the better.) Then I can follow the same path inside the Scrapbook MAX program code and look for things to fix.

[Jessica]

hi lorne, thanks again for taking the time to help me out.
Step by step:
- i add a picture to my page using the 'add picture' button
- I make the picture the size i want, like half the page. (i work at medium screen resolution)
- I crop my image
- then i select the shape and shadow i want to apply
- finally, i sharpen the picture. Only then do I get those 'squares'.
Hope this helps you figure out what's causing this to happen, and thanks once more !