.jpg problem

[jeb]

I have not been back to using Xara in a long time now. Presently using Designer Pro X 12.4.1.47518 DL x64 Nov 17 2016. I have saved .jpg's over the years in all Xara releases and now opening some of the older ones and they come out blurred and can't be cleaned up. It is obvious that no one would have saved photos that looked like that. Not all - just some of the older ones.

Any suggestions? - tks jb

[pauland]

I have saved .jpg's over the years in all Xara releases and now opening some of the older ones and they come out blurred and can't be cleaned up. It is obvious that no one would have saved photos that looked like that. Not all - just some of the older ones.

Any suggestions? - tks jb

Jpegs don't deteriorate over time. If they've been edited repeatedly they will deteriorate though.

My guess is that they are as they have always been, but now on a modern computer you are seeing them at a far larger size when you drag them to a larger size and consequently on a higher-resolution screen they don't look as sharp as you thought they were. Your attached image is tiny.

[Acorn]

If you were using XDPX, you might have dropped an image onto the page and resized down.
If you then use File > Export JPEG, the application will create an image of that size.

The "correct" way would be to save from the Bitmap Gallery or rescale until the Status bar show 96dpi and save that.

Acorn

[jeb]

Tks for the info, guys - I noticed that all the ones that are blurred are very small like this one - Don't know why as I certainly didn't size them down like that before saving.

I have attached another, larger one to show the problem.

Again tks - jb

[handrawn]

that really does not look 'sharp' until it's sized down to about 60 px or so which makes me think maybe what you have is a thumbnail that has been enlarge and therefore become pixelated ?

[jeb]

that really does not look 'sharp' until it's sized down to about 60 px or so which makes me think maybe what you have is a thumbnail that has been enlarge and therefore become pixelated ?

Yup - the problem - any way to fix?

Also, if one wants to have photos printed, what is the best to save them in for sharpness? .jpg's are not nearly as sharp as .xar but people that print pics can't use .xar. - jb

[handrawn]

there are programs that claim to be able to do this

thing is though, if you are enlarging an image the program need to interpolate information that is not in the original - in simple terms it needs to fill in the gaps as the image becomes bigger

the smaller the original image the more difficult this is as you start with not a lot

as far as the printing goes - PNG is good if you want to print from image format, but quality always depends on resolution - again in simple terms the bigger the image the better it prints - edit as long as you don't have this issue of course

[jeb]

I have about a hundred pics that were scanned years ago and then "enhanced" with Xara and saved as .xar and .jpg. The .xar are far, far sharper than the .jpg's but when I enlarge them they get "fuzzy". Most of these were done about the same few days and I don't understand how some were saved so very small and come out pixelated and most do not - guess I screwed up somehow.

The scanner I used was the HP - G4050 which will scan print, pics, slides and negatives up to 4800dpi - if you want to go take a vacation while it scans at that high of dpi. I don't remember what I scanned most of these at.

I bought that scanner back years ago and don't even know if it will work with Win-10 now.


Do you think today's scanners would do a much better job? Any recommendations? - jb

[pauland]

Jeb, if the xara files have sharp images, then you can export them as sharp pictures.

Could you post one of the files?

The industry standard for printing is 300DPI or above, so your scans aren't likely to be an issue.

[jeb]

The ones that are coming out pixelated I have only in .jpg, no .xar of them.

Here one that I have cleaned up in xara then saved as .xar and exported as .jpg. The .jpg is not near as sharp as the .xar.