Shrinking an image A LOT without losing quality?

I use Adobe Photoshop CS, and I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem I'm having with resizing images.

I'm wanting to resize an image from 485x391 to 100x81, but when I try to do that, the image quality is completely degraded and it goes blurry where the finer details are.

I'm sure there must be a way to avoid or fix this, but I can't seem to figure out how. If anyone can help me, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks a heap in advance.

-Apprentice.

Not 100% sure but try pasting it onto a vector layer before resizing

I have never had a problem sizing down... only enlarging. Make sure you are zoomed at 100%. If you zoon in too much or too little it will affect the display but not the actual image.

upload the image!

i usually sit these out, but stumbled across this thread at the exact moment i have encountered this problem same...again. My sister is a designer and explained it to me, but i have since forgotten.

But here is an example of what Apprentice described. I am contructing a page making GIF buttons using Illustrator, then exporting as PSDs for Photoshop. In Photoshop i resize the PSDs to 50 by 21 pixels and save as GIF. now as you will see, the slightly larger image has acceptable quality (still not perfect though?) but the smaller one looks so distorted that it is ridiculous. Now as you can see, i'm no designer... but i try every now and then...

any ideas? I have a feeling i have the wrong order of operations when resizing etc in PS and Illustrator? are there any web viewable images which can be transparent perhaps? either would help!

I've found that it depends on dpi, image resolution.

The higher the dpi, the better quality both in original size and resized sizes.

Of course, your file also grows dramtically, you could have a few megabytes on one image. I usually make my images about 150 dpi. Just because I do resize them. Don't over do it with dpi, meaning don't go into 300dpi or higher unless you plan print the images. 300dpi is the minimum for prints. For the web 72dpi, the default is good enough. You make the call.

What format is the pic in before you resize? If it's a gif; try this

First open your file, then save it as a new file with a .bmp extension, open the bitmap and resize that smaller, save it and then convert back to gif

hehe. thanks, but im not that much of a beginner

already converted the font to vectors as well

Are you setting the type to 'crisp' as well?

When resizing in PS CS using 'Image > Image Size...' try changing the 'Resample Image' type to 'Bicubic Sharper'

Edit: Maybe it's supposed to be 'Bicubic Smoother'? Can't remember....

hi there

on some pictures this technique may help

FIRST
blur your picture (blur or gaussian blur for more control on bluring)

THEN
resize it down

FINAL
sharpen it again (sharpen or unsharp mask for more detailed results)

this is not a guaranty to get better results on EVERY picture. use this if you have pictures with sharpen edges.

hope this was useful
yours tigercat

When you shrink an image down that dramatically it is hard to keep it looking like the original. You only have so many pixels to work with when its that small.

You may be able to clean it up a little if you go down to the pixel level and edit it, but its really impossible to keep the quality of the original.