How to get images to have that glossy look?

gegjr · April 27, 2008

I've been shooting for a long time but I have never been able to get my dgitial images to have punch or that glossy snappy look online. How do you get images to have that "look" like the ones in the Dgrin galleries? I can't pick a specific image because they all have that look. I tried to follow the "POP" tutorial but I use Paint Shop Pro and although I could find the functions, such as the Adjust/Threshold, the functionality as described in the tutorial did not exist in Paint Shop Pro. I have both PSP X and XI installed on seperate computers. I really would like to get my images to have that "PUNCH".

Thanks,
gegjr

gus · April 27, 2008

gegjr wrote:

I've been shooting for a long time but I have never been able to get my dgitial images to have punch or that glossy snappy look online. How do you get images to have that "look" like the ones in the Dgrin galleries? I can't pick a specific image because they all have that look. I tried to follow the "POP" tutorial but I use Paint Shop Pro and although I could find the functions, such as the Adjust/Threshold, the functionality as described in the tutorial did not exist in Paint Shop Pro. I have both PSP X and XI installed on seperate computers. I really would like to get my images to have that "PUNCH".

Thanks,
gegjr

Show us some of your images. It will be a lot easier for members of our give you input.

Do you have a link to your galleries ?

gegjr · May 14, 2008

images link

gus wrote:

Show us some of your images. It will be a lot easier for members of our give you input.

Do you have a link to your galleries ?

I thought I had already responded to this request. I came back to see some responses and noticed that I hadn't responded. Sorry about that everybody. I don't have anything on Smugmug yet but here is a link to some images on Flickr. I hope you will still give me some advice.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/12433231@N02/rp07yr

Art Scott · May 14, 2008

a lot of people are more apt to give advice if they can just look at your photos instead of having to clik a link and to to an outside site and come back.......here is the thread that tells all there is on
how to post pics on dgrin even from flikr:D

Good luck

OffTopic · May 15, 2008

gegjr it appeared to me as if many of the images in the link you provided were of scanned prints, and to be honest I've never been able to get satisfactory results scanning either prints or negatives. Wish I could because I have thousands of prints/slides that I'd like to get online.

For the ones that appear to be digital, it's hard to tell for certain because the images are quite small, but many of them appear to be very soft, as if maybe you are applying a soft focus filter effect globally (noting softness particularly in hands on a few photos)? Again, it's hard to tell for sure because the images are so small and low-res (for example, the first one of Destiny is 360x239px and 23KB). Maybe the originals look good and when you downsize for flickr it is impacting the quality? Most of us using smugmug upload our original high-res files and control the viewable size via our control panel. Smugmug's sharpening algorithm isn't akways 100% perfect, but it's pretty darn close. When I want to upload a downsized file for some reason (say to post on a forum without my watermark), I keep the longest side at 600px and the file size no less than 150px (usually Image Quality between 8-10), even then I can tell a big difference in the quality.

I'm no expert by any means, but I hope that gives you something to think about. If uploading larger files doesn't help resolve your problem, at least by uploading a larger size/better quality people will be able to help you pinpoint any problems.

gegjr · May 17, 2008

response to off topic
Offtopic,
Thanks for taking time to look at the pics.

OffTopic wrote:

gegjr it appeared to me as if many of the images in the link you provided were of scanned prints, and to be honest I've never been able to get satisfactory results scanning either prints or negatives. Wish I could because I have thousands of prints/slides that I'd like to get online.

You are correct. Many of the images in the Flickr gallery are of scanned prints and are low res. For example the two wedding/reception sets. They were both shot with film using a Minolta Maxxum 9 and and Kodak Portra 160NC or 400NC film before good digital became available to the mainstream. The negatives were sent to a professional wedding lab where they were scanned and the high resolution image put on CD. But what you see are the lower res images downloaded form the labs server.

OffTopic wrote:

For the ones that appear to be digital, it's hard to tell for certain because the images are quite small, but many of them appear to be very soft, as if maybe you are applying a soft focus filter effect globally (noting softness particularly in hands on a few photos)? Again, it's hard to tell for sure because the images are so small and low-res (for example, the first one of Destiny is 360x239px and 23KB). Maybe the originals look good and when you downsize for flickr it is impacting the quality? Most of us using smugmug upload our original high-res files and control the viewable size via our control panel. Smugmug's sharpening algorithm isn't akways 100% perfect, but it's pretty darn close. When I want to upload a downsized file for some reason (say to post on a forum without my watermark), I keep the longest side at 600px and the file size no less than 150px (usually Image Quality between 8-10), even then I can tell a big difference in the quality.

Again you are correct. when I upload to Flickr I wasn't too concerned with uploading the original full resolution files. I really only intended Flickr to be a sort of online proofbook not as a backup for the full size image. So although when I resize images I try to resize for good quality, my primary consideration is file size. I guess that is a hold over from older days when most people didn't have high speed internet connections. When I first started on the internet there was no "WWW" or browsers, modem speeds were only measured in kilobytes/second, we surfed Veronica and Archie and communicated on message boards called SIGS (special interest groups).

OffTopic wrote:

I'm no expert by any means, but I hope that gives you something to think about. If uploading larger files doesn't help resolve your problem, at least by uploading a larger size/better quality people will be able to help you pinpoint any problems.

If nothing else you have reminded me that this is now the age of fast internet connections and no longer do I have to be so concerned about keeping image size down for fast display. Almost everybody, especially photographers, has a broadband internet connection.

All that aside however, I guess I didn't explain what I wanted very well. Because what I am interested in learning is how to get that shiny almost polished look to my images. What are you doing in your image programs that boost the luminosity of your images? I looked at your site and almost all your images look like they were printed on glossy paper. I hope I've explained my self better.

gegjr · May 17, 2008

Art Scott wrote:

a lot of people are more apt to give advice if they can just look at your photos instead of having to clik a link and to to an outside site and come back.......here is the thread that tells all there is on
how to post pics on dgrin even from flikr:D

Good luck

Thanks for your feedback and suggestion Art. I guess I don't understand what the big deal is about clicking a link to go to another site? It's just like clicking the link to go to your personal website. Don't all browser versions have tabbed browsing now? I might be old school but not that old school.

gegjr · May 17, 2008

Sample image

How to get images to have that glossy look?

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