Downsample Photos For Better Image Quality

I was recently reading some posts on the photographylife.com blog about downsampling photos to help make noise less visible and even sharpen the overall image. I had never heard of this before but when I started looking into the subject a little closer I found that the whole topic of downsampling for improving image quality is a pretty hotly contested subject across the web.

You can read the post that tries to explain the science behind downsampling to reduce photo noise at this link - https://photographylife.com/why-downsampling-an-image-reduces-noise Warning! - this post is pretty technical and your eyes may glaze over before you finish it, but for those who claim to understand that kind of stuff ... enjoy!

So what is meant by downsampling anyway? Really it is just simply downsizing the image in either Photoshop or Lightroom or some other post-processing software. So why downsize images? Well, these days many of the newer DSLRs feature high resolution sensors. I often shoot with a Sony A65 or A77 and they both have a 24 megapixel sensor. Other cameras can have much higher pixel density such as the Nikon D800 with 36 megapixel images. While this kind of detail in images is great for printing, it is totally lost on the internet where such large file sizes are not in frequent use for viewing on a monitor. So images created with high resolution sensors are often downsampled or downsized to make them more convenient for viewing over the internet.

However, when downsampling images, a happy side-effect is that noise appears to become less visible. I tried it myself and sure enough I found it to be true as well. Of course, there is a whole group of folks on the web forums who seem to want to explain why this isn't really so and will go on and on using the most technical terms imaginable to try to support their position that downsampling is basically useless for contributing to image quality.

But I know what I see in my photos when they are downsampled correctly and I see improvement when viewed on an average monitor, not to mention the added benefit of working with a smaller file size in the first place. Why not try it yourself and see what results you get?

Here is the link to an explanation on how to use downsampling properly in Photoshop - https://photographylife.com/how-to-properly-resize-images-in-photoshop and here is a link to an explanation on how to downsample in Lightroom - https://photographylife.com/how-to-properly-resize-images-in-lightroom