Re: Shrinking a picture --- and it becomes blur !!

<hsyq8xg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:52088436-f3ae-42a8-862f-cb283c8c517c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Hello !
>
> I do computer graphics as a hobby, and have produced quite a number of
> stunning graphics. Often time though, when I shrink the graphic to put
> them online, they become blurred !!
>
> I do all kinds of computer graphics, from fractals to virtual
> landscape, to sci-fi rendering, using softwares ranging from photoshop
> to terragen to povray.
>
> When I am satisfied with a certain creation, I often make a master
> copy with the resolution of 8192 X 6144 pixel. Why that size? Because
> that's the largest size my puny computer (dual-core 3GHz CPU running
> XP with 4GB RAM) can produce within a reasonably timeframe. (Give or
> take 8 hours for rendering).
>
> As the filesize for a JPG with 8192 X 6144 resolution may go up to 30+
> MB, I often have to shrink them to a more reasonable 1024 X 768,
> filesize about 800 KB or so.
>
> However, I found that when I do that, many interesting minute details
> that were in the 8K X 6K pictures (even when I shrink fit it to my
> 1024X768 desktop as wallpaper) are GONE. In the 1024 X 768 JPG files,
> all those details become blurred. No matter it's a JPG ---> JPG
> shrink, or BMP ---> JPG shrink, or TIFF ---> JPG shrink, all those
> details are GONE !!
>
> I have experimented with many different graphic / photo softwares in
> the shrinking process, all of them give me the same "blurring" effect.
>
> Now my questions to all you Gurus as below ---
>
> 1. Can you tell me of the best way to shrink a 8192X6144 size graphic
> to
> 1024X768 size graphic without losing the interesting details?
>
> 2. Which software do you recommend to carry out the shrinking
> operation?
>
> Thank you all in advance !!!
>
> Sincerely,
> Lee

are you setting to bicubic sharper??
I heard this is a better option to tick for sizing down
what if your original is not jpeg (compressed) but instead saved as tiff 
uncompressed?
then you are not compressing an already compressed format

are you choosing high or maximum for quality of the downsized jpg?