Absolute Beginner's Guide to Digital Photography

It’s usually best to scan photos and negatives at the highest resolution possible, then

downsample later. There is a limit to this, however: Scans of photos at resolutions

above 2400 samples per inch usually bring out the photo grain, which begins to

degrade the scan.

Resampling 101

Resampling an image permanently alters it. Some of its data is discarded when you

downsample, resulting in an image that is usually not as good as the original. That

being said, if you really have to resample, follow these steps:

1. Open the problem image and save it with a new name.


2. With the image open in Photoshop Elements, choose Image, Resize, Image
   Size.


3. Check the Resample Image box if it is not already selected. With this box
   checked, you can change the number of pixels in the image.


4. Check the Constrain Proportions box. When this box has a check, it keeps the
   shape of the image constant. Whenever you make a change to the width or
   height, Elements automatically adjusts the other dimension.


5. Choose Bicubic from the Resample Image pop-up menu if it is not already
   selected (see Figure 9.8). The Bicubic algorithm resizes the image with the
   greatest amount of image quality possible. Use the faster but lower-quality
   methods—Nearest Neighbor and Bilinear—only if Bicubic resampling takes
   too long with your computer.

120 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TODIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

FIGURE 9.8

Bicubic is the

highest-quality

algorithm for

resizing an

image.

6. Change the number of pixels. There are three ways to do this:
   ■ Type the number of pixels you want in the Pixel Dimensions Width or
   Height fields. The print size will also change.