Theme Thursday: W

Oct. 24, Feast of St. Anthony Claret, bishop, and patron of the Catholic press, Claretians, the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, weavers, savings banks, and foundations.

"W" is for Wales.

And Window.

And Wow.  Because I just figured out why I've been so frustrated all along with the lack of detailing in my photographs.  Now I'm going to share it with you because it really, really bothered me and was a disappointment every time I enlarged the photographs to fit my blog format.

I happened upon it by accident.  Usually, I upload the photo, click on the "x-large" option, then go to the html setting view on Blogger and change the width and height numbers to fit the width of my blog entries.  This time, I left them as is when they upload--size "medium"--and switched to html to make the changes as usual.  When I previewed this short-cut version, I was surprised by the horrid quality of the photographs.  I knew that wasn't the same picture I had just viewed in a smaller size.  There's no way it could have blurred and transformed and twisted into such a fuzzy mess just by enlarging the proportions.

Then it hit me.  The pre-size that I select via Blogger determines the amount of detail needed for that size, cutting out the rest.  So size medium is relatively small.  When I changed the size of that, it didn't take the original digital information and adjust accordingly.  It took the small pixels from the medium size and blew them up.  The result was that I had a medium-sized picture with medium-sized pixels that I was trying enlarge beyond its capabilities.

Now, if that's the case with medium, then the same is true for large, and x-large.

So I started over.  This time, instead of setting the upload to x-large, I set it to "original size."  Whoa.  That was hugemongantic.  Okay.  Reason why I've always avoided publishing a digital photograph in its original size.  You wouldn't be able to even see it, it's so big.  But then I switched to html view in the post window, scrolled down to the html picture text, and saw that there was no "width" and "height" wording and corresponding numbers, presumably because this was the original, right-off-the-camera size--no sizing details needed.  So I inserted the information into the html text, like this:

width="511.2" height="768"

It worked.

Downsizing from the original size file, which retained all the detail, kept the photo clear and detailed.

I shouldn't be this happy, but I am.  It wasn't my poor photography skills or badly functioning camera after all!

The rest are results from my free time with Photoshop Elements.  For the one immediately below, I applied Coffeshop Blog's Teeny Tiny World effect, and fidgeted with the Gaussin Blur tool.  I got it to slant so that the front of the house is basically clear of, despite odd angles.

Then I thought I could figure out the Gaussin Blur tool on my own without having to apply a pre-formulated effect.  Using the handy Magic Wand tool, I did much better with accurate selection.

Last, I discovered that the Quick Selection tool is even better for accurately selecting even the oddest-shaped things.

I could have spent more time on that last one and blurred or un-blurred different parts of it until I was fully satisfied with each tiny detail, but by then I'd already spent way too much time on it.

Story of my life.  Now, to Cari!