I design and build custom furniture and am creating a straightforward thumbnail gallery of images of my work. When I import a photo into a 200px X 200px graphic box, scale and trim it, I frequently wind up with a photo that has jagged edges. It looks better in a browser than in the editor, but it is still unacceptable to me. Resampling seems to make things worse. What can I do to get a clean thumbnail image?
What format is your original image? For best quality you should have your originals in a lossless format such as psd or tiff before importing then change the settings in FW’s output tab to the most suitable for your image ie quality and file type. I suspect jpeg for these but watch they aren’t gif.
Quality settings can made default in File>Document Setup under the Graphics tab where there is a Quality slider.
The other thing that may help when you are importing is to check the Ignore Resolution box - and if you really want the hassle of absolute control over quality then preprocess your images (size and quality) in your favourite image editor (Photoshop, Pixelmator etc.) and import as a pass-through image which will then be unaltered by FW.
But I suspect that you just need to tweak your settings/file type.
Another thing to look at is whether your images are placed on the page over the top of another item (graphic). If so these images can combine to produce a composite image - that is why looking at an example page would help us to help you.
Could you also clarify if you meant that the outer edges of the image are jagged, or if it’s internal details within the photos that have this appearance?
If the latter, then sometimes the only way out is to use Photoshop or another dedicated photo editing application to make your thumbnails. Freeway’s resizing algorithm is a trade-off between speed and (subjective) image quality. While it can have great results with lots of different image types, for some troublesome image types, it can be quite destructive. The good news is that your original image is not altered in any way by this process, so it’s a great sketching tool to use while laying out your page. Once you have settled on your layout, you can “sweeten” any images that don’t make the cut by using another application to make resampled copies at the final size and then importing these as pass-through to cancel out Freeway’s resizing attempt.
Walter
On Oct 3, 2011, at 3:45 AM, DeltaDave wrote:
Another thing to look at is whether your images are placed on the page over the top of another item (graphic). If so these images can combine to produce a composite image - that is why looking at an example page would help us to help you.
Thanks for you knowledgeable advise, Dave. Converting my images to TIFF format helps a lot. When I try to import a photo as a pass-through image, all I get is an X-ed out box. What’s going on there?
The X-ed out box means that the image you are importing will not fit into the box you drew. Try pressing Shift-Command-F to fit the box to the image. Remember, pass-through means that the image you are placing is exactly the pixel size of the box, at 72ppi, and in a format that browsers can easily view (GIF [good for logos and hard-edged art], JPEG [RGB only!, good for natural scenes], or PNG [especially if you need semi-transparency or full transparency over a mixed background]).
Walter
On Oct 3, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Louis Fry wrote:
Thanks for you knowledgeable advise, Dave. Converting my images to TIFF format helps a lot. When I try to import a photo as a pass-through image, all I get is an X-ed out box. What’s going on there?
WHen you get the xed out box, that means your picture is bigger than the box you are importing into.
Go into your editor (like the ones dave mentioned), and resize your picture to the size of the box you wish to put it in. save it - and import it as the same size.
Julie
On Oct 3, 2011, at 9:08 AM, Louis Fry wrote:
Thanks for you knowledgeable advise, Dave. Converting my images to TIFF format helps a lot. When I try to import a photo as a pass-through image, all I get is an X-ed out box. What’s going on there?