I can only export from Lightroom Library to a folder and input the size according to the required size that a forum accepts. I'm sizing at 800 (w) x 535 (h). Infact when I input 800 the other value automatically shows because of the way it' set up at this stage. Maybe it's the process through Tinypic. Is that yet another compression ?
There are two aspects here, the size in pixels and the compression factor. When exporting to web images I use Irfanview because I know & trust it and don't have Lightroom, which like most Adobe products is very bloated, Irfanview is small & lightning in comparison, though it certainly does not have all the features of Lightroom it is very useful for quick & dirty manipulation.
Irfanview's resize option is very effective & using the Lanczos interpolation method the effects are very good. I'm guessing the 535 in Lightroom comes from 2/3 of 800, Irfanview will also keep the aspect ratio constant when resizing, unless you want it to do something different.
When you "save as JPEG" in Irfanview there is a slider to adjust the quality. I usually leave it set at 80 when exporting to web, the output file size depends on the amount of detail in the image but is usually considerably less than 100,000 bytes for a 640x427 image. You get a larger image file with smoother detail by moving the slider up, and a smaller image file but with more "blocky" effects by moving the slider down. This has nothing to do with the pixel count (size on the page e.g. 800x533) which is what you've already resized the image to.
Your cathedral image is ~60KB which is perhaps a little on the low side for an 800x533 image. I'm pretty sure you could increase the quality when saving images as JPEG in Lightroom but I don't know exactly how to do it. Worth a try anyway.
Another point with JPEG images - don't input, edit, save, input, edit, save more than you can help, you lose detail every time you save as JPEG. Set your camera to save as RAW or TIFF; if you make edits & want to preserve them, save as TIFF raher than JPEG; the files are (much) bigger but you don't lose detail by doing that. Save as JPEG only when you've finished working with the file.
Hope that helps.
I've just gone through your advice - at first a couple of the technical phrases threw me and I was pressed for time too and thought it best to come back later when I could read it thoroughly. Not so daunting after all -Lol..I saw the word interpolation !! What is interpolation , I thought, I'm going to have to have time to take this in but having gone through it again I see it's pretty straight forward. John asked a straightforward question about the quality setting so I was able to dash off a quick reply but this is about the same thing. I've now moved the 'quality' up to 80 from 44. Not long ago I had a problem uploading a photo to keep it to a certain size and ,I think I should have decreased the resolution. As you see from my last post it's at 72. I was told to leave it at 72. I have no idea why other than it affects the file size and thus keeps the KB down. I was told that 50 was fine for quality. This is a problem sometimes - I hear and read one thing and then another. RAW. There's another thing. I read of a professional photographer who wins competitions and awards with his photos and he uses top quality Jpeg. I use the top quality Jpeg. Some say RAW some say Jpeg.The debate goes on and on. On my US tour I was advised to shoot top quality Jpeg except if I thought I was going to get a special shot. I got a special shot of lightning in Jpeg and was asked if had got it in RAW. I had actually been shooting in RAW but the 7-10 second and bulb settings trying to catch the lightning used a couple of cards quite quickly even though I have 2 & 4 GB cards so by the time that Cg lightning came along I was back in Jpeg.
I'll now save in Tiff. I edit 95% in Lightroom- I have Lightroom 2 now and the only reason I send it into CS2 is to put in text ,a border and I find the sharpening is better in Photoshop. I don't do layers there etc. I keep the editing simple. When the image is returned to Lightroom as a PSD file it's then sent to an 'edited' folder via 'export' and conversion to Jpeg, at this 800 x 535 and when I want to upload to this forum for instance I just take the image from there so once it's been edited,that's it.I save the originals in a folder because when you edit in Lightroom it stays edited but there is, I've just discovered, an option if someone wanted an original to have the original. I've bookmarked Irfanview,I see it's a free download.
So, all in all it seems I just needed a couple of changes. You ended your post with 'hope this helps'. It certainly has - much appreciated too .Thanks.
John..thanks for your help too ,it looks like it's been sorted..until next time and something else of course.Lol. I don't know what Lightroom Mogrify is. I haven't heard of it before. How come you got such a sharp second image with the racing car ? I assume the different settings you used were with this LR Mogrify ?
