Soft resized images?

[vaskern]

The resized images look soft (unsharp) to me. Just tried recreating them with 2.6.8. When downsizing images I think you need to sharpen them to keep them sharp, does vm do that?
thanks
Joomla! 2.5.24
VM 2.6.6

[jjk]

As far as I know, VM doesn't apply a sharpening matrix by default. But if you like you could experiment with this file:
...\administrator\components\com_virtuemart\helpers\img2thumb.php, around line 239 there is a commented piece of code with a sharpening matrix. You can try to uncomment that. I didn't check if it works, because I don't use resizing images. I prefer to do that with my photo editor before I upload images into my shop.

[vaskern]

Thanks, I will try to test that.
Any idea why it has been commented out?

[jjk]

Any idea why it has been commented out?

I don't know. Probably because the result of applying a sharpening matrix varies a lot depending on the type and size of the original image. That's why I prefer to use a photo editor which provides a number of different sharpening options.

[vaskern]

Ok, I used to upload the thumbs individually aswell but it saves alot of time to use VM instead. I imagine its a very common task, that of scaling down and sharpening images. If I have the time I might look into how its done in other software.

[AH]

If you want sharper images

I just take the large image directory and perform a batch process using Photoshop

This resizes
Maintains sharpness/quality
Saves in a new directory
Renames the image to the resized version


Then I upload back to the product image/resized directory on the server

This may not be for everyone, but if you are having issues with the auto re-size - this might help you

Of course, Photoshop is not cheap!

[GJC Web Design]

for a freebie try http://www.irfanview.com/  - has full batch functionality

[AH]

GJC

Nice find

If you are going to use it though please donate the tiny 12euros!



"IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use)"

USAGE AGREEMENT
IrfanView is provided as freeware, but only for private, non-commercial use (that means at home).

IrfanView is free for educational use (schools, universities, museums and libraries) and for use in charity or humanitarian organisations.

If you intend to use IrfanView at your place of business or for commercial purposes, please register and purchase it. I want to continue working on this program, therefore, your registration will be an incentive for me to add new functions and increase the program's quality.

[jenkinhill]

I have recommended IrfanView for many years for simple image processing, even my wife can manage to use it for batch processing.