Pixelated photos

I hope I can find an answer to my problem

can anyone tell me why my photos pixelate when I zoom into them, they are
okay for a few zoom clicks, but then they begin to pixelate, the problem
seems to be the same on Photo shop, Picaso and my other programs, but its a
little bit better on Office Picture Manager (which I still have on a trial
basis) the same pictures were perfectly okay on my old computer and I could
zoom right into them without pixelation, my old computer is a far lower spec
than my Sony vio so I expected the photo facilities to be as good or better
on the Sony. The odd thing is that the photos look perfect when the screen
saver slide show enlarges them, no pixelation at all!

I`d really appreciate it if somone can help me withthis problem, I`m not
very computery so I don`t know where to start looking, I need to use the
photos for my artwork and its getting urgent Thank you so much X

Pauline X

Post in reply to: Pauline
=============================
What is the pixel size of your images?

Just place your mouse pointer on a
thumbnail and the tooltip should show
the Dimensions.

--


John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

Post in reply to: John Inzer
Thanks for getting back to me John.

The pixel sizes are varied for each photo, but the ones that appear to
"pixelate" are the smaller pictures, the one I`m working with now is 640 x
481 pixels and 230 dpi. the much larger (2592 x 1944, 72dpi) pics that I`ve
taken myself can be zoomed into with not to much pixelation, almost non at
all.

Many thanks
Pauline

Post in reply to: John Inzer
Thanks for getting back to me John.

The pixel sizes are varied for each photo, but the ones that appear to
"pixelate" are the smaller pictures, the one I`m working with now is 640 x
481 pixels and 230 dpi. the much larger (2592 x 1944, 72dpi) pics that I`ve
taken myself can be zoomed into with not to much pixelation, almost non at
all.

Many thanks
Pauline

Post in reply to: Pauline

=====================================
It would be expected that the low resolution
images would pixelate when you use zoom.
This can happen on high resolution images
also if you zoom in far enough.

--


John Inzer MS-MVP
Digital Media Experience

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

Post in reply to: <>
On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 04:07:01 -0800, Pauline


Well duh... this is expected behavior. I can say that based on my
estimation of editing in excess of 200,000 images in Photoshop over
the years.

The "rule" is the lower the resolution of any RASTER BASED image the
more pixilated it will become as you zoom in more. This does not
impact the image quality itself...only how it's quality (or lack there
of) is perceived by you on screen.

For background purposes there are two families of images common to
computers. The first and by far the most common are raster based
commonly called bitmapped files of which there are many file types
such as JPEG and TIF, being such images are created from a collection
of rectangular pixels. The more you zoom in on ANY such image, the
more obvious the pixels that make up the image become, similar to if
you look at any newspaper image close enough you can see the pattern
of dots that makes up the image.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics

A vector based image is comprised of geometrical primitives such as
points, lines, curves. Example some Flash image. These can be zoomed
in or enlarged without loss in quality and you won't see pixelation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics

I'm trying to be gentle, but the "problem" seems more your lack of
understanding of the basics. The ONLY logical reason why you're seeing
something "different" is in fact YOU are doing something different on
your new computer verses your new one. It may not be obvious to you,
but you must be the case if we are to accept everything else you said
at face value.

Either your monitor's size/screen/resolution is different, the window
you view images in (it's size on screen) is different, your graphic
card's resolution is different or it's color depth... something has
changed or the image you're looking at is in fact not the same either
in it's physical size or resolution. There's no getting around it.
Period.