Making good "thumbs"

at least semi decent !

[henry0]

Most of the time I am not dealing with making or optimizing img
I am more of a code person
For the same reason I never had a need for Photoshop and happily use
PaintShopPro.
However when I have to reduce a huge img and make it a thumb for ex 133 pix
It does loose lot of definition and readability
As a general rule of thumb how should I address that problem

Thanks

[Longhaired Genius]

Easy Thumbnails is a freeware program for Windows that's perfect for my thumbnail needs.

[henry0]

Thank you
But I am rather looking for tech guidance than using another utility
However it sound small enough and got some good review.

[limbo]

Rule of thumb: Photoshop CS resize bicubic smoother is excellent ;)

I can't really commment on PSP but I see no legible distortion when using CS to reduce large photographs to thumbnails. I was told that using a staged reduction can help maintain clarity, i.e. 10% increments. But I have not seen good evidence to support that rumour.

The unsharpmask tool and a little adjustment of levels can increase definition for thumbnail images where the 'parent' looks good. The level of tweak for each shot will need to be worked out separately though, so not a method for batching. Incedentally does PSP have batching? If not I would certainly recommend getting a copy of PS, creating thumbnails by hand could get VERY tedious.

[henry0]

Thanks Limbo
PSP has most of the PS functions but no Thumb batch function.
I will try using the unsharpmask tool (never did with my thumbs)

BTW
LonghairsGenuis application is really not bad, and ist batch function works well however in batch mode it's "all of them" or one at a time, you cannot select a few and thumb only those fiew, but since it adds a tn prefix that is no big deal

Well, soon or later I will get a PS

Best regards.

[monkeythumpa]

If you are resizing .gifs you will have an impossible time trying to get them to look good when resizing in PSP. .jpgs can be shrunk ok because they don't predefine the colors needed in the image like a gif does. Even in photoshop you will need to switch the mode from Indexed color to RGB before resizing a gif.