Picasa Blurred images - What to do now?

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

I've gone through hundreds of scenery photos, resizing, changing hue, sharpening... anything to improve the photos. I've spent many hours and hope not to redo everything.

Everything looked fine while I was in Picasa. Later, when going back into Picasa, the photos downloaded and I ran them as Slideshow and individually. Most mountains, cloud and rock formations have blurred areas. Not the whole photo, just certain areas, as if a charcoal artwork had been rubbed with a finger, here and there.

What is the cause? Am I changing too much? Is this correctable?

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

I've gone through hundreds of scenery photos, resizing, changing hue, sharpening... anything to improve the photos. I've spent many hours and hope not to redo everything.

Everything looked fine while I was in Picasa. Later, when going back into Picasa, the photos downloaded and I ran them as Slideshow and individually. Most mountains, cloud and rock formations have blurred areas. Not the whole photo, just certain areas, as if a charcoal artwork had been rubbed with a finger, here and there.

What is the cause? Am I changing too much? Is this correctable?

Of the things that you stated you did to the photos, resizing would not do anything to the photo quality. Depending on how much you changed the hue it could make some colors bleed into one another and possibly casue an effect like that, and if you did too much sharpening it can cause some blotchyness. If you saved the changes on the original photos I'm not sure what to tell you to do to try to get them corrected.
I will give a piece of advice, that won't help you with these photos but will save you some possible heartache in the future. When I make changes to my photos I never save the changes over the original file, I always save the changes as a new file. I then always have the original photo to go back to.
Sorry this doesn't help you much for these photos.

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

Thanks Ken,

I was hoping to not redo all those hours. Still have the originals.

[gophish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close gophish]

Thanks Ken,

I was hoping to not redo all those hours. Still have the originals.

Glad to hear that you still have the originals. Unfortunately in most editing software once you save the file all the changes are applied and I don't know of any way to back selected ones out at this point.
Since you have the originals saved you could take one of the altered photos and just play around with some editing to see if you can redo something and if you find something that works then apply the same editing to the others.
Sorry I can't be more helpful in this situation.

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I don't know what photo editing software you are using but cheap image software will cause more problems then a better one. We spent the money for Adobe Photoshop and while I can not use 90%PLUS of what it can do it does much more with images and we have been able to resize and optomize images that our other tools could never do.

BUT

Photoshop is way too complicated and I have never taken the time to learn how to use it!

SO?

Who knows what I am trying to say other then perhaps you may want to try a different tool NOT that I suggest paying ~$400 for photoshop!

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

I've play a bit more with Picasa but find no way of reversing the edits, once done.
One good thing, Picasa stores all the pictures, but doesn't mess with the originals.

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Robert, will this page help you in any way as they show some comparisons?

http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ps_...ml?tab:depth=1

I have Photoshop and Photo Elements but find them both difficult to use so I only use the very basic stuff that you can do with most of the free programs too. They used to have tutorials online. Some where free and some you had to pay for.

[Thirsty Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Thirsty]

I had that problem once. It was caused by a smear on the lens while I was taking the pictures and didn't notice it. I now I check lens periodically when taking pictures. Are the blur spots in the same place in pictures? Take a good close look at the originals and the camera lens.

Mike

[RESORT2ME Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RESORT2ME]

I had that problem once. It was caused by a smear on the lens while I was taking the pictures and didn't notice it. I now I check lens periodically when taking pictures. Are the blur spots in the same place in pictures? Take a good close look at the originals and the camera lens.

Mike

Thanks Mike. My problem... I was in editing for too many years.
I still have the originals... just trying to avoid redoing so many shots.

Be patient... I'll figure this out. Yeah, I'll get it today if it takes me all year!

Robert