Re: I'm loosing my pixels!

roxy writes ...

AWESOME website! Amazing photos!

Thanks ... we were really happy with the Lilac-breasted roller,
elephant, cheetah and lion pics ...

Most of my images are created in photoshop from scratch, which
may account for my woes

In that case you may be better off saving as a GIF instead of JPEG, if
you have a limited number of colors ... maybe you could post a sample
image? For a lot of non-photos GIF is better ...

My digital camera downloads photos at 180 res and
2500 px wide. This seems like a larger file to me; when I change
the res to 300, the pixels multiply to a much larger number

The "res" value only matters when you print, the 180 number is
basically just a placeholder that you can change to anything you like
.... you can avoid the "pixels multiply" problem by unchecking 'resample
image' when you do Image - Image Size ... this keeps your original
pixel dimensions and lets you change the res ...

So if I start my canvas at a res of 180 and 2500 px, will I
have a better quality jpeg?

The res ONLY matters if you are printing it ... on the web it will show
as 100%, ie, actual pixels ... in other words a 90 ppi 600x800 pixel
jpeg on the web will look identical to a 360 ppi 600x800 pixel image on
the web, whereas if you PRINTED them the 90 ppi image would look 4x
larger in each direction. I think some of your problems might be
caused by resampling when you don't need to ...

For what you are describing I'd just use an initial canvas of the size
of the final image and work on that. Then if you need a smaller jpeg
for the web later do the resize with 'resample' on using 'bicubic
sharper' (the res won't matter).

Bill

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