RESIZING IMAGES IN ADOBE ELEMENTS

By Bill Popejoy, Jan 2005

Both Elements 2 and 3 offer “Bicubic Interpolation” as a way to resize an image. It works well allowing us to make enlargements from rather small files. When enlarging an image file new pixels must be inserted. When reducing the size of an image file pixels must be eliminated. How this is done is important. Adobe has an excellent way of doing it. I will focus on the new way offered in Elements 3.

Here is the screen we see when we click on “Image” > “Resize” > “Image Size”. First we “un-check” “Resample “Image” and change the resolution to 300.

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We notice that the “File Size” has remained the same but that the image size has been made smaller. Now we re-check “Resample Image”. Since we want to make the “Height” 14 inches we will be “Resampling”, that is adding pixels. Now here is the new part. Down at the bottom we click on “Bicubic” and a new screen drops down. Four options are now available:

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Nearest Neighbor: Used mainly with illustrations. Do not use it for photos!

Bilinear: Only provides medium quality. Don‘t use it with photos!

Bicubic: This is what we have been using before. While it works well there are better ways.

Bicubic Smoother: USE THIS WHEN ENLARGING IMAGE FILES!!!!!!

Bicubic Sharper: USE THIS WHEN REDUCING THE SIZE OF AN IMAGE!!!!! If it

oversharpens some areas of the image back up and use “Bicubic”.

There it is. Since most of the time we will be enlarging (resampling) our images we will be using “Bicubic Smoother” which works better than “Bicubic”. We now select “Bicubic Smoother” and change the “Height” to 14 inches and click “OK” (Upper right). Resizing is finished.

Notes: Notice that I set the image resolution at 300. Experience has shown that most printers give the best possible results when 300 is used. THIS IS IMAGE RESOLUTION AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PRINTER RESOLUTION! DO NOT CONFUSE THE TWO!

Making an image smaller is called “Downsampling”. You are advised to use “Unsharp Mask” after “Downsampling”.

It is important that we uncheck “Resample Image” before setting the resolution to 300. Otherwise we would not know if we are “Resampling” or Downsampling”.

Elements 2 offers “Bicubic”, “Nearest Neighbor” and “Bilinear”. “Nearest Neighbor” works well for line art. Do not use with photos! We are stuck with “Bicubic” which works well.

Photoshop 7.0 and CS have all of them.

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