Cr@p Photos

mel123

I got a digital camera without knowing too much about them. Went off on hols and took some snaps. Now i realise i must have used the dreaded digital zoom as photos are not the may west, mostly fuzzy. I know photoshop would prob help me out, but i dont have the money or the knowlegde to use this. Is there any free software i can get on the net to help me sharpen them up or fix them in any way? I have printed out some picks from a Kodak kiosk and they are slightly fuzzy.
Any help would be appreciated.

Shrimp

Simple answer = No.

Post a an example, they are fuzzy but that doesn';t sound like digital zoom. Digital zoom usual makes them pixelated, not fuzzy.

Oriel

Software won't do an awful lot to help the quality of the image. Never, ever use digital zoom - it only attemps to do what a computer can do ten times better.

Post a sample image, and let a few of us here see what we can do to it. If you like the results, then you know you'll be able to salvage something.

Oriel

Christ Shrimp, we actually agree on something?

mel123

ok, can you see this image??

Enygma

Looks like digital zoom alright.

jlang

I see that picture is 640 pixels wide by 480 high. Did you resize to this size to post to the web, or have you just got your camera set to low resolution? You may have 5 megapixel camera or whatever but if you have it set up to only save pictures that are 640*480=0.3MP in size you won't be able to recover that information.

mel123

no i havnt done anything with the images??!!

Oriel

What is the make/model of the camera?

melekalikimaka

well if thats the case, thats half the problem, if you digi zoom, its pretty much croping the area isnt it? so if ya have a 4mega pix cam with x 2 dig zoom on, it becomes a cropped 4 mega pic, with a 2 mega pix res does it not? which isnt bad really

mel123

its a fuji a205s, nothing special

halenger

Aah... 2 mega-pixel camera? That would be a big factor.

Is it just me or does that picture look a little low-lightish also? Maybe I'm just not used to 2MP cameras.

But if you've done nothing to it you're shooting at the lowest resolution setting also. You'll be able to take less photos at higher resolutions but you'll get better pictures.

(edit)
I see on dpreview it seems to say it switches to 640x480 when using digital zoom. Well that's something for you. Avoid, avoid, avoid the digital zoom.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Fujifilm/fuji_finepixa205.asp
"Digital zoom 2.5 x at 640 x 480"

jlang

If you don't have one, you can download the manual for that camera at www.fujifilm.co.uk/technical/download/A205S-om.pdf. It explains how to change the quality setting for your camera, also the optical/digital zoom.

Carrigman

mel123 wrote:

Is there any free software i can get on the net to help me sharpen them up or fix them in any way?

Picasa from www.picasa.com might help.

Shrimp

forget it, it's a lost cause. You'd get better quality of a camera phone. I recommend this thread is recycled.