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Nagging graphics question
#278405 - 03/07/12 12:00 PM
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I've worked with Paint Shop Pro 9 for years. Currently I use it for work to clean up scans of sheet music before exporting to iPad. Recreationally I adapt various widescreen images to fit my 1920x1080 screen as wallpaper.
Lately I've noticed that it loads up JPG's with a noticeable, pixelly degradation. It's not my computer because I can load the same image in IrfanView with no loss in image fidelity. But by golly, I'd say about 3 in 4 car pictures I load (most of which are already 1920x1080) appear in PSP as visibly corrupted.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aven_grab1.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aventador_degraded.jpg
(yes, I know this had to be saved as such, but it already looked fuzzy in PSP before saving)
The stupid thing is, I KNOW about SAVING with less vs. more compression, but I was completely ignorant of LOADING with less vs. more compression! I've tried looking for settings that would change this, but I'm stumped. Can anybody say WTF I'd doing wrong?
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278410 - 03/07/12 03:39 PM
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> I've worked with Paint Shop Pro 9 for years. Currently I use it for work to clean up
> scans of sheet music before exporting to iPad. Recreationally I adapt various
> widescreen images to fit my 1920x1080 screen as wallpaper.
>
> Lately I've noticed that it loads up JPG's with a noticeable, pixelly degradation.
> It's not my computer because I can load the same image in IrfanView with no loss in
> image fidelity. But by golly, I'd say about 3 in 4 car pictures I load (most of which
> are already 1920x1080) appear in PSP as visibly corrupted.
>
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aven_grab1.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aventador_degraded.jpg
> (yes, I know this had to be saved as such, but it already looked fuzzy in PSP before
> saving)
>
> The stupid thing is, I KNOW about SAVING with less vs. more compression, but I was
> completely ignorant of LOADING with less vs. more compression! I've tried looking for
> settings that would change this, but I'm stumped. Can anybody say WTF I'd doing
> wrong?
This may sound dumb (or obvious) but, at what color depth is your monitor?
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| DMala |
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278415 - 03/07/12 05:22 PM
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> I've worked with Paint Shop Pro 9 for years. Currently I use it for work to clean up
> scans of sheet music before exporting to iPad. Recreationally I adapt various
> widescreen images to fit my 1920x1080 screen as wallpaper.
>
> Lately I've noticed that it loads up JPG's with a noticeable, pixelly degradation.
> It's not my computer because I can load the same image in IrfanView with no loss in
> image fidelity. But by golly, I'd say about 3 in 4 car pictures I load (most of which
> are already 1920x1080) appear in PSP as visibly corrupted.
>
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aven_grab1.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36804572/aventador_degraded.jpg
> (yes, I know this had to be saved as such, but it already looked fuzzy in PSP before
> saving)
>
> The stupid thing is, I KNOW about SAVING with less vs. more compression, but I was
> completely ignorant of LOADING with less vs. more compression! I've tried looking for
> settings that would change this, but I'm stumped. Can anybody say WTF I'd doing
> wrong?
Is it just that the image is slightly larger than your screen, and PSP has to scale it to make it fit? A lot of graphics apps will use a quick and dirty scaling algorithm just to fit the image on the screen without using a lot of time or CPU. Can you force the zoom to 100% in PSP and does that clear it up?
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| jopezu |
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bread-train
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278416 - 03/07/12 06:16 PM
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edit: wait, are you saying it's weird looking in PSP or when it's set to the wallpaper?
what os are you using? even though you're spitting out images at your monitor's resolution, make sure that the os isn't "stretching to fit" when you select the image as your wallpaper - choose something like 'center' or 'native' or anything that sounds like any type of stretching or adaptation won't get used.
try exporting to png to make sure it's not file compression you're seeing.
it could be a few different things man... these types of issues are difficult to deal with without seeing. those 2 images honestly look very similar to me. and it's difficult to tell with the amount of glowing and bullshit in the image. just draw a 1px wide diagonal black line on a white background, save and use that as a background image to determine the behavior of where's it's going wrong.
Edited by jopezu (03/07/12 06:19 PM)
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278420 - 03/07/12 06:46 PM
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I've used Paint Shop Pro 9 in the past. Maybe you already know this, but JPG is a horrible format for images. You will almost always get some image degradation with JPG.
Next thing I want to mention: Paint Shop Pro 9 doesn't work well with large image files.
If I were you my solution would be: Get your hands on Photoshop. It doesn't even have to be the latest and greatest Photoshop, (and stop using JPG if at all possible!). PNG is a pretty good format in my opinion.
Sorry if I can’t be of more help.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278657 - 03/09/12 09:35 AM
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I am using WinXP Pro, SP3. I'm not 100% sure of monitor color depth, or if there is even such a separate thing, but I know I put Nvidia settings at 32-bit.
> Is it just that the image is slightly larger than your screen, and PSP has to scale it to make it fit? A lot of graphics apps
> will use a quick and dirty scaling algorithm just to fit the image on the screen without using a lot of time or CPU.
> Can you force the zoom to 100% in PSP and does that clear it up?
> I've used Paint Shop Pro 9 in the past. Maybe you already know this, but JPG is a horrible format for images.
> You will almost always get some image degradation with JPG.
When PSP9 zooms to 100%, it doesn't clear up. The funny thing is, viewing the SAME DAMN JPG IMAGE in IrfanView is normal, unpixelated.
FURTHERMORE, PSP9 doesn't behave this way with ALL images, just an inconvenient coincidence that it happened to be with a large handful of car wallpapers. And not all the car wallpapers I loaded.
> Next thing I want to mention: Paint Shop Pro 9 doesn't work well with large image files.
It has worked well enough for me. Yeah, I know JPG is inherently lossy and I COULD work with PNG if I really so desired. But for my current non-pro purposes, meh.
> If I were you my solution would be: Get your hands on Photoshop. It doesn't even have to be the latest and greatest Photoshop
Even if I were to score Photoshop for zero money, it would be the re-investment of learning time I can't afford right now.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278658 - 03/09/12 09:45 AM
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You've been posting about this for 2 days. You could learn PS in an hour or less. All the image programs have lots in common, almost everything. Additionally you can just save it as png in irfanview in literally 5 seconds. Let's not call that a pro-only option just to be hardheaded. Let's call it 5 seconds.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Smitdogg]
#278660 - 03/09/12 10:58 AM
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> You've been posting about this for 2 days. You could learn PS in an hour or less. All
> the image programs have lots in common, almost everything. Additionally you can just
> save it as png in irfanview in literally 5 seconds. Let's not call that a pro-only
> option just to be hardheaded. Let's call it 5 seconds.
I haven't looked at Irfanview in some time (2 PCs ago, I think), but when I did it had a nasty habit of slightly altering the colors of PNG files, which only mattered to me when I was trying to match colors in multiple images, or against a background. I had to ditch it at the time and use PSElements.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278664 - 03/09/12 01:21 PM
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One thing for sure is we have no idea what are you talking about as both images look almost exactly the same, excepting some variations with the compression algorithm between the original image and the re-saved one. It's a bit complex but maybe you can give us a better idea if you:
- Open Infraview and Paint Shop Pro.
- Load the same image on both programs.
- Minimize everything except these two programs.
- Right click on task bar and put both windows tiled vertically (side to side).
- Align both images if possible so both windows point to a same noticeable area.
- Press "Print Screen" key (after putting cursor off screen).
- Open Paint.
- Paste the image and SAVE IT AS A PNG FILE.
- Post the PNG image (your desktop screenshot) here.
Then we might totally understand what you're seeing.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: TriggerFin]
#278674 - 03/09/12 05:14 PM
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I've used it for years and not seen that. Maybe if you had your png setting set to lower the bit depth...
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| jopezu |
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: TriggerFin]
#278677 - 03/09/12 05:29 PM
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sounds like it's time to quit using irfanview
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| jopezu |
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Smitdogg]
#278678 - 03/09/12 05:30 PM
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>You've been posting about this for 2 days
dude, c'mon... it's a *nagging* graphics question. you were warned upfront.
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Mojo2000]
#278687 - 03/09/12 06:39 PM
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I believe this is a problem caused by chroma subsampling. In a jpeg colors are stored in a lower resolution than to brightness, this should improve jpeg compression. The human eye is less sensitive to colors, but in certain conditions the artifacts are very obvious, especially vivid colors like the red in "your" car.
When decoding a jpeg most programs will filter the lower resolution color information, to avoid blockyness. However some programs will not. PSP apparently, but also my old nokia phone, and certain DVD players etc etc.
I guess you could open your jpeg in a program that does not have this problem and save it as a png. Then open it in PSP. You should also be able to save the image as a jpeg without chroma subsampling in PSP.
Personally i never save jpeg with chroma subsampling because i know what the artifacts look like, so i notice them all the time, even when properly filtered. I guess you can join the club now  .
http://www.wfu.edu/~matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/JpgChromaSub.html
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Re: Nagging graphics question
[Re: Smitdogg]
#278699 - 03/09/12 08:13 PM
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> I've used it for years and not seen that. Maybe if you had your png setting set to
> lower the bit depth...
This was an older version of Irfan, far less complex than it is today; I just installed it to look.
I'm not even certain at this point what I was using to see the color values, but they were off by just a small amount. I did reduce the color depth, but it was within that reduced palette that the shift was occurring.
I did note, at the time, that it was exactly the same change that would occur visually when IE was used to display the images, so in IE the discolored image would match the discolored background, but the other browsers (I think FF & Opera) would have a barely visible seam where the color was wrong.
As I say, it was some time ago, and IE couldn't properly handle the transparencies, which is why this was an issue at all.
Edited by TriggerFin (03/09/12 09:15 PM)
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Problem solved, I guess... or worked around.
[Re: Smitdogg]
#278755 - 03/10/12 12:48 PM
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Thanks to all for your thought-provoking suggestions! 
> You've been posting about this for 2 days. You could learn PS in an hour or less. All
> the image programs have lots in common, almost everything.
For my brain, that would be like saying all kitchens and garages are laid out the same. Yeah, much in common, but I take longer than most to find common things in different locations.
> Additionally you can just save it as png in irfanview in literally 5 seconds.
Yes, thank you, this solves the immediate practical issue of how to preserve image quality when creating a new wallpaper from existing image stock. Don't know why I didn't think of this simple workaround. 
Mind you, it does not address why PSP9 loads up an image looking so different (compared to IrfanView), or why different JPG's load up with such ranges of mutation. I guess I'll have to be more diligent before having my paint fun...
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