Image Quality

This really has little to do with textures for use in SL. However, at the same time, it relates enough to texture making that I'm hoping I can get some answers before we go off the the new, and unknown format next week.

The easiest way to try to make it clear what I'm wanting is to explain what I'm attempting to do. In addition to making textures for my clothing and building in SL I also love making desktop backgrounds for my computer. I use a lot of my textures made for SL but I also use photos I've taken with my digital camera (enhanced, ruined, or whatever using GIMP). My monitor's native resolution is 1280 by 1024. My digital camera's, at the fine setting, is 3264 by 2448. Often the portion of the photo I want fits quite well in the 1280 by 1024 monitor resolution.

My normal method is to open my image editing window at the final size I want the image to be.......in this case that would be 1280 by 1024. Then open as a layer the image or photo that I want to use for that background (or texture). That makes the photo or texture layer larger than the image size. In GIMP there is a tool to "make layer same as image size".........which just crops the layer to fit the image as defined in the open image. I move the layer around to where I get whatever it is I want centered or offset to get what I want in the final product. That works most of the time since there is plenty of room due to the difference in sizes. Effectively that is nothing more than cropping the layer. I get pretty good results that way (not to mention it's extremely easy to do). Where my question comes in is when the portion of the photo is too close to one edge or the other (top, bottom, right, left.......any edge). Is there a better way (besides retaking the photo) than to resize the layer so that the edge of the photo will fit the image size then crop to that size? I usually resort to the use of padding when that happens but I've done the resizing thing too.....the quality, naturally is a little degraded but not really that much since the resizing is generally minor (probably nothing more than 100 pixels on a 3264 by 2448 layer). I'm wondering if it might be better to open the editing window at the image I'm editing's size and crop from there to the desired size?

I hope I haven't totally confused anyone. It's a minor detail (I won't call it a problem) that I hope to get some information on before we move to a different format next week that might or might not make it more difficult to get an answer.

Thanks to anyone who has some ideas.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking what's the best way to proceed when the area you want to extract is smaller than the size you want the final image to be. If that's indeed the question, then there's really only one answer. You'll need to enlarge the selected area. It shouldn't really make any difference whether you enlarge before or after you crop.

My only (very minor) suggestion would be to perform the crop and the enlargement as two separate operations, so that you have maximum control over both. I'm not sure if this is the case with GIMP, but Photoshop has several interpolation methods to choose from for resizings, which are easy to access when resizing is the sole operation you're performing. The crop tool can be set to automatically resize the image upon cropping, but it doesn't present the interpolation options. It just goes with whatever you've set as the default method. Changing the default requires going into preferences, which takes a few extra clicks. You can get the same end results either way, of course. But keeping unique operations separate is sometimes slightly more convenient, especially if you're not quite sure in advance what settings will produce the most desirable results.

Okay that more is or less is what I thought.......but sometimes I sort of out think myself, if you know what I mean . I think my question began with my normal method of opening an image..........which is the open my editing window at the final desired size (as explained.......or I tried to explain ). I thought that maybe I could reserve some quality by opening the image I want to edit at it's size and then cropping to the desired size after any upsizing I might find necessary..........maybe that helps you understand my question a little better.

I know of no script in GIMP that allows both cropping and resizing in one operation. I'm sure there is a pluggin for it somewhere at the GIMP plug in repository but I don't have it. I always do one operation at time. I also try to upsize before any cropping whenever possible...........which is sort of contrary to my normal method.

Thanks......it helps me.