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I have several images for print, and only after deleting the original RAW files did I remember I needed to resize the images for print.

Will resizing JPEGs result in a compromise in my image?

They are 24mp, printing at 13x20.

mattdm
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user74091
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2 Answers2

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Yes; if you edit the image (for example, to resize) and save, there will be new degradation from JPEG artifacts. If you saved (and resave) at a very high JPEG quality, the difference will be negligible.

You could avoid this by saving in a lossless format like TIFF instead after your edit.

mattdm
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    I'm puzzled, though, why you need to resize to print. Is this to get around artificial restrictions on file size? – mattdm Jul 07 '15 at 17:26
  • https://prodpi.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203813924-How-To-Order-A-Custom-Size-Print – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:40
  • Not sure the reason behind resizing an image for print but it seems that's what's done. – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:41
  • None of this would have been a problem but at the size I wanted it printed, after having converted to JPEG and deleted my RAWs, when resizing the image as large as I wanted it there were obvious pixelation along the edges at 100% ;( – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:42
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    That article seems to only be about cropping your image if you want to have a non-standard print size/format. If you don't need a non-standard print format, don't do that. – mattdm Jul 07 '15 at 17:42
  • It sounds like maybe you are scaling the image up? That isn't a JPEG matter — that's your scaling algorithm. Some may be better than others, but all involve inventing new data — you can't do a tv crime movie "zoom and enhance". – mattdm Jul 07 '15 at 17:44
  • I'm having the images printed with a border around them, so it is a custom print size – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:45
  • Yea, idk. I'm photoshop, maybe another program would have been better at the resizing? – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:46
  • So I guess there's another question that being, why do you need to resize an image to print at that size? – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 17:48
  • @user74091 Yeah, exactly. I think I'd contact your print lab to ask. – mattdm Jul 07 '15 at 17:51
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    Or the more basic question - what has the OP just learned (the hard way) about deleting files and/or having a destructive workflow in which files get deleted? – James Snell Jul 07 '15 at 17:53
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    ya that was a horrible mistake – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 18:02
  • tell me if i should start a new thread with this; but what is reason we resize images? – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 18:06
  • Perhaps: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/4779/what-dpi-should-i-resize-my-image-to-for-best-printing-quality – mattdm Jul 07 '15 at 18:07
  • oh no, my problem was that when i converted from raw to jpeg the image was resized to fit the long edge at 2460pixels. – user74091 Jul 07 '15 at 18:15
  • 2460 pixels? So what does that have to do with printing? – JDługosz Jul 08 '15 at 01:57
  • It looks like the image size was reduced when converting to JPEG (2460x2460 is about 6MP and this image will be smaller than that). Looks like 74091 wants to go back to the 22MP image that was originally taken (or somewhere in-between)? – hypercrypt Jul 09 '15 at 07:58
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JPEG issues aside, downsizing images will result in a loss of sharpness. Furthermore, printing will result in a loss of sharpness too - the extent of this depending on the particular medium you are using. This is what output sharpening is used to counteract. You can read an explanation of output sharpening for web and print in this article, which has some visual examples.

This applies regardless of file type - it is inherent to the interpolation involved in resizing an image.

Mark Fisher
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