Grr, why is Microsoft Photo Editor crap at resizing!

Ok, lame pit again, but it’s irritating.

I took some pickies on the way to work. I am viewing them at work and want to resize some of them to about 30% for internet viewing so I can post them on another NG. But the only app I have available - MS Photo Editor produces horrible, visibly pixelated results!

Correction - really lame pit.

I don’t have it here at work, but I do at home. I’m going to ask you a really dumb question. In the Resize dialogue, have you checked the box for “Smooth”? I’ve noticed that MSPE does a pretty bad job of enlarging, but I haven’t had much problem with it reducing.

Yes, the smooth is clicked.

Strangely it’s ok (not brilliant) with halving (50%, 25%) but at 30% it produces clearly visible pixelation.

Ditch the MS program and go with Irfanview. It’s an excellent free image viewer/manipulator progam. It can resize photos using the Lanczos Directshow filter which yields excellent quality results (you may need to download the plugin package).

Because there is no computing task, no matter how simple, that Microsoft cannot screw up.

Jpeg images use a process of compression that involves 8x8 pixel blocks. If you resize using a percentage that will divide evenly into 8, then you will get a relatively clear clean result. If you use an alternative percentage that doesn’t divide evenly into 8, you will get blockiness when it attempts to remove the lines, or half-lines, or 2/5 lines, or whatever.

Unless they use a superior compressor, which clearly the app in question does not.

Since it does okay with 50 percent reduction, it might help to reduce incrementally. Reduce two or three times as necessary, 50 to 75 percent at a time.