I'm a Mac user and noticed that when I use the free tools that come preloaded on OSX to resize a photo to 60x60 that I'm losing a lot of resolution. It didn't used to happen, but started an OSX upgrade or two ago. I gave up and all of my Avatars are pretty old.

Today, I noticed Orguss' Avatar (who doesn't notice Orguss' avatars?) is 60x60 and it has excellent resolution which reminded me of my issue. Is there a good Mac app or website that will resize a photo to 60x60 and maintain good resolution?

I'm not into photography so I have zero interest in learning Photoshop or any of its derivatives.

I am no expert either, but what you claim makes no sense to me. I don't think the software makes any difference. Start with a good photo and it will appear better reduced than a lousy photo.

I'm no photographic expert and know there are plenty on here who can explain to you what you are seeking; however, if you're interested, I can resize any photo for you using my own copy of Photoshop.

Btw, my avatars do lose a lot of quality in the resize.

quote:

Originally posted by GaryBF:
I am no expert either, but what you claim makes no sense to me. I don't think the software makes any difference. Start with a good photo and it will appear better reduced than a lousy photo.

It doesn't make any sense to me either. I'm starting with a high megapixel photo, and when I reduce the size to 60 x 60 I can't tell what the photo originally was. It didn't used to be like that.

I Googled a little bit, and tried a few websites and they've all been either bait & switch or they make a 60 x 60 picture looks as bad as the free tools that come with OSX.

I don't know anything about Macs but I did find this.

https://www.howtogeek.com/2016...ate-and-edit-images/

Thinking further, I doubt that the starting resolution has much to do with the end result as does the complexity of the image. Too much detail will not show up at 60X60.

Maybe this will make more sense.

Here is the original photo of Splash at 5.9 MB:


Here it is resized to 60 x 55 using Preview:


Weird! This is how the thumbnail looks on my screen in Preview, but it looks much better above when Postimage displays it:

To do it well requires some image editing chops and practice.

Here's a quick-and-dirty example, however.

I snagged the following hot model/actress photo from here: https://www.walldevil.com/wall...cogentgene-photo.jpg



(The one above resized so as not to screw up the page here.)

Then I cropped her face, from the original 1920x1200 photo, resulting in this 387x387 image:



Then I scaled the face crop to this 60x60 image:



You'll notice it's a bit soft, so I did a quick-and-dirty sharpening with a filter called "unsharp mask," resulting in:



If I'd been doing this for more than a quick "how to," I'd have spent more time fiddling with the unsharp mask values to optimize them for that image. I just plugged in some commonly more-or-less-kind-of-works/better-than-nothing values.

And that's how it's done.

ETA...

Additionally, beware of over-cropping. Besides the basics, like not cutting off ears, images need room to breath and someplace for a gaze to go. E.g.: Compare the lovely Emily Ratajkowski in this:



To this:



In the first she looks like she's constrained by that box. In the second she's got room to breath and space for her gaze to go.

You'll note a similar principle in the Jessica Alba crop: I gave a bit more space to the direction in which her head's tilted.

quote:

Originally posted by GaryBF:
Too much detail will not show up at 60X60.

True, but the mind will fill in a lot of missing detail, given just a hint.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ensigmatic,

Use this online resizer and choose "best quality" at the bottom.

http://resizeimage.net

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Use this online resizer and choose "best quality" at the bottom.

http://resizeimage.net

Merely resizing won't always do it. The OP's cat image is a good example. It's 2/3 not-cat. Simply scaling it down yields



(Original image needs sharpening, too, IMO. It's fairly soft. Since the floor and toys are also soft, I'm guessing slow shutter + camera shake. That will be exacerbated when it's scaled-down.)

quote:

(Original image needs sharpening, too, IMO. It's fairly soft. Since the floor and toys are also soft, I'm guessing slow shutter + camera shake. That will be exacerbated when it's scaled-down.)

It's also too dark.

I did some playing around with cropping so she fills up more of the picture and some sharpening. Result after resizing:



Any better? I think no matter what you do the picture will still be too small to show good detail.

Thanks everyone. Some very informative tips as well as a useful link that is much better than OSX's free tool

Egregore, thanks. I see what you're saying. She is being too much of a goofball to be a good avatar. In that photo she is all twisted up while playing with an instant karma toy from Yarchin at the same time she is playing with a catnip laced toy.

Use the cat but cut off the lower half of her body. Your subject area is her face, fore paws, and the toys surrounding her head. That would allow for more detail than showing her entire body.

Thanks Orguss

Here is option #1:


Here is option #2:

I was thinking:

The cat photo suffers from poor lighting. It will take some work the brightness/contrast to fix it up, or perhaps a different photo would be easier.

Seems to be unanimous: tatortodd, when you take spontaneous photos of cats, make sure you set up proper lighting beforehand.

Splash prides herself on not cooperating. Case in point, she was being incredibly cute 2” from good light.

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
Seems to be unanimous: tatortodd, when you take spontaneous photos of cats, make sure you set up proper lighting beforehand.

There's no need for smartassery when people are only trying to help.

You have the luxury of using photos taken by professionals, using hardware a damn sight more capable than the average smartphone or P&S camera. You have subjects that are well-lit, in-focus, and uncomplicated. He has a subject that is poorly-lit, out-of-focus, and, between the subject, background, and the wildly varying contrast and lighting, is very, very "noisy."

He is trying to understand why your avatars look so good and he cannot accomplish the same with his subject.

Or maybe it would be better to just leave him in the dark?