I have just discovered my 3.2 magapixy camera can produce good poster size prints at London Drugs. I wanted to try to do a 24x36" collage of 60 or so prints. I made a 18x24" collage using 8 shots with no problems. I should say I am using Photodelux home edition to do this. I would open a picture,(I used the 24x36" shot that turned out well as my base, so the size of it should be correct) then resize it much smaller, grab another shot, copy and paste it to the first, resize it on what now will be my collage photo, etc. To my dismay I have found that the images have lost their quality.... :confused:
Is this fixable? Would elements 2 or 3 be able to do what I am attempting? What I want is to be able to get a 24x36 poster with up to 60 or so shots on it. I have already had a 24x36 poster made from one of my shots with very good results, so I don't see why I can't do what I am attempting. Anybody know what is going on here and how I can get a fix on it? Thankyou to anyone who knows the answer to this one! :happy:

Well, I hate to say it but first off Photodelux isn't capable of doing the task. You def need Photoshop or a similar program...good news is any version of PS or an program that supports layers will do the trick!

Second issue, with the "quality loss"....I am by no means a "techy" but I do know that it has to do with whats called interpolation. The easiest way to explain it is trying to put a babies socks on an elephant! What I think is happening is that when you put the smaller images on the much larger background Photodelux has to "make up" image information to fill in the gaps. That's when the quality loss happens...I assume you now have pixelation in your images?

Unfortunatly I don't know the best way to correct for this. Also, one last thing you may not realize: The more images you put in you collage, the smaller each image will end up being. I used to work for a sports photographer doing photo montages and he would rarely use more than 15 images, even on a 36x48! The way every image was nice and visible and didn't "compete"......

Hope this helps a little.....

-Mindy

Thankyou for your reply, it is insightful. Your point about how many images that can be placed on a collage is very useful information, and yes my images are pixulated. Thanks for the explaination as to what is happening here.
Actualy the home edition does support layers, this is not obvious until it is switched to 'advanced menus' , so it should be as good a tool as elements for the job I am attempting. My mistake it seems is that I want too many shots on one print. That is still what I want to do, but if it is just not possible then that is good to know....I'll do what is in the realm of possibility. Thankyou again for your reply~

I'd start with a much larger canvas..... large enough to hold all 60 photos in exactly the porportions you wish the poster to be.

flatten when done and change the resolution settings to print at the desired size without losing the pixels... or at least 250ppi or so providing file size is no problem.

Thanks both of you guys, I had no idea how advanced Phodelux had become and the larger canvas idea didn't even occur to me! Doh!

Let me know if the collage works out the way you want it. It never hurts to try, eh?

Good advice rondon, I am unfamiliar with the term 'flatten' could you describe exactly how to do it? I am new to this stuff and need to be addressed as knowing very little...I don't mind if you make it too simple.
So making the canvas dimentions 24x36 is a good idea? or should I go bigger? I'm going to give it a shot, see what the home edition can handle. Thanks!

Well... I don't know anything of PhotoDeluxe... so hopefully my idea works with it... but then again a canvas large enough to hold 60 3.2 megaPixel photos might slow the best of computers...

my thought was to do that... make that canvas/poster whatever size will contain the 60 photos.... but it's the DPI or PPI ...dots per inch... pixels per inch ... that change the resolution.... so you would want the poster to be maybe 4 times normal resolution which I think is 72ppi.. so 4 times 72 is close to 300ppi (or dpi)

so that would be a new canvas 24x36 inches... with the reolution set at 300ppi..

it sounds like you had it all right but the canvas resolution... you can use that photo as the canvas as you did before... but find out how to change it's res. to 300ppi ... HELP file should tell you.. look for resolution

for even higher resolution you would increase that 300ppi but the file size jumps quickly this way if that is a problem.

I hope I haven't taken you down a path that your software won't go. and maybe someone will reply who is more familar with it.

If it helps: by the time you figure out this little problem you will know more about sizing... which is one of the more used funtions of photo editing software... good to know.
good luck
RonDon
oh ! found this by one or the members here .. Vikki I don't have a link to the forum but I thought this discribed resolution so well that I saved her illustration.

rondon you gave me the key to the problem. I was trying to do this at 72dpi which made a mess. Not all the pics I have are at 3.2, some are less, and I do crop most of them... I have just started making the collage again at 200 dpi as this seems to give the detail I need. What I can do is not limited by this program, but by computer memory...and I gave mine a lot when I bought it 2 years ago. It is looking really good so far. I am finding photo deluxe does all I need so why would I pay for a fancier program? Thanks a bunch Guy!!! A little information can go a long way. It aint over until I finish it, but looks very good so far. I hope the whole thing doesn't lock up near the end haha. I'll let you know when I finish it. :happy:

when I 1st started working with layers I made clones of family members then put them in a different background...

soon I had enough to make this sort of collage... some of the clones were pretty crude as they were made in the early days of the hobby.

guaranteed to familarize anyone to working with layers for sure.

I'm glad you went with the extra ram ... just the thing for working with large photo files.

BTW you should be able to erase portions of your layers if you'd like to try this sort of thing.
bye
RonDon

Corel photopaint 9 was made available free for Linux users a while back, It's very good I was using 8 up until last month. I did have the link somewhere, anyway this is an unlimited trial of the windows version.

http://www.graphixanstuff.com/Software/Corel%20Presentations.exe

it's basically freeware :grin: Have fun!

Well for all who are intrested, I finished my poster and is is very good. The people at London Drugs suggested a DPI of 150 which worked well. I made a 18x24" poster with about 60 shots on it. I would have shown it here, however, I can make it smaller with my Zoombrowser software but do not know how to get it to a folder after resizing it. :D

I can make it smaller with my Zoombrowser software but do not know how to get it to a folder after resizing it

Well in case you wanted to resize... Zoombrowser sounds more like a viewer..... if it's not part of photo deluxe open the photo in PD and look for a way to resize it there.

often tools can be found by clicking on words like file, edit, image, view to bring up hidden menus.

zooming in is only like using a magnifying glass... no changes have been made.

learning to resize photos is well worth the effort..

an important thing to remember is that when you save the new copy change the name of it a bit so that the original is not lost.

also by renaming it by adding a letter or such at the end ie: Dog Dog b ..... it will be located next to the original in the file for the browser to find.

I'm glad you poster came out good and I'm sure everyone would like a peek.

note there is a 100kb limit here... anything in the ballpark should look good 80-100kb... :) try a 4 x 6 at 72dpi
bye
RonDon

I've learned a bit doing this little project. First, the poster printer at L.D. has a limit of 150 DPI, so there is no point in sending them anything larger. You will note this is a motorsports poster, and I finally got it small enough to post here (I hope it works..first time doing this).
As long as I can do all I need with the home edition,I'll look no further. Also all photos were taken with a Canon A70, I believe in doing more with less...(one such uncroped shot went to 24x36 very nicely)...I plan to get the A95 next, going to 5 MP will give me a bit of 'breathing room' for my shots.
I have a concern that adobe will not be supporting 'home edition' soon, is there a way to store my program with it's updates on a CD? To those who haven't tried it, a collage can be a fun project, give it a shot!
Thanks rondon for your insights and help in the areas of resizing...very true we should become familiar with this.