Crucial Factors That Affect Image Quality

When you are putting an image out on the internet or even if you are showing your masterpiece to the world, no matter what the medium or form is, that image represents you. And, if you want the world to applaud or even recognize the very picture you have captured or chosen, you have to have a keen eye for image quality. Stress on that last line – When we say you have to be careful when you choose images, it means you should be very selective and choose only those images which are of high quality.

So, no matter, in which class you fall, whether you are capturing images first-hand or are selecting images for posting on multiple platforms, in this blog, we’ll discuss some factors that contribute to the quality of an image –

Factors that Contribute to the Quality of an Image

1. Image Scaling

Where is it that you want the image to go? Quite presumably, you are going to use or rather publish your image on some of the other mediums on the world wide web- it could be for a social media post, blog cover or in-content image, a website banner, etc. Accordingly, you will have to set your image’s aspect ratio and size. For example, a widescreen image of size 1920X1080 with an aspect ratio of 16:9 is a full high-resolution image that is used on smartphones, laptops, TVs, etc

2. Digital noise

No one would want to spare a look at an image that is bombarded with noise or grain. Digital noise is an important factor as far as image quality is concerned. When capturing an image such distortion can occur when you take a photo in low light, for instance at night or when the shutter speed is slow. Even if you haven’t captured an image and are picking up one for use, a grainy image can completely tarnish your content.

In either case, you can easily get rid of digital noise easily in the post-production stage. One of the best tools that you can use to get rid of digital noise is Adobe Lightroom Classic. Let’s give you a glimpse of how easy it is to use Adobe Lightroom Classic –

1. Download, install and run Adobe Lightroom Classic

2. Click on the Detail dropdown to see options pertaining to noise reduction and sharpening

3. You can now easily adjust Luminance, Detail, and Contrast by pulling sliders next to these options left to right or vice versa

3. Compression

When posting images on the web, “one size fits all” does not work. This is why some parts of the image have to be removed to reduce the size of the image. But, often when we reduce the size of the image, the quality too takes a hit. Unless and until you are a skilled photographer you should opt for lossless compression, a type of image compressing that helps in reducing the size of a picture without compromising on its quality. In most cases here, you shall be converting an image in a format like PNG or TIFF where the image size is compressed but the quality is not sacrificed.

4. The Device You Are Using

To begin with, the device with which you are capturing an image plays an important role in an image quality.

What Do You Think? Can a smartphone whose rear camera is 108MP and the front camera is 40MP compete with a DSLR as far as image quality is concerned?

Every time you see the major players rolling out their flagship models, you’ll for sure, come across some major improvements in their camera. And, we must say that smartphones today are loaded with megapixels because of which they give a tight competition to DSLRs but, in our opinion, they are yet to have the capability to out shadow DSLRs. Why is that so?

One reason is that the sensors in dedicated cameras are much larger than smartphones because of which they can take in more light and thereby render better photos especially in low-light scenarios. What else do you think is the reason why DSLRs often outperform smartphones? Do let us know in the comments section below. Also, what do you think can help smartphones come head to head with DSLRs as far as photography is concerned.

5. Lens Flare

Lens flare occurs when you are capturing an image in way too bright light. In such a case the resultant image looks overexposed and the light on some elements starts to blur them out. We’d like to fuse lens flare with the time of the day you have chosen to take the photo. An apt timing would help prevent lens flare. It is for the same reason that photographers either choose the time right after the sunrise or right before the sunset because at this time the sunlight is neither too bright nor it is completely absent, just the perfect lens flare, that’s it!

6. Color Accuracy

Another important determinant factor of image quality is color accuracy. In simple terms, as someone trying to capture an image or even someone using a processed image, your goal may include retaining the original colors of the components of the image as they are in real-life. As opposed to a processed image you’ll certainly have more command on a RAW image where you can match the color accuracy during the post-processing stage and then bring the image as close to reality as possible. For the same, you can use applications like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

Wrapping Up

We all love taking pictures and it goes without saying that all of us would want to have the most impeccable photos, right? Hope that you’ll now have more pointers to evaluate your work. We’d also like to mention that these are some important factors that affect image quality but this is not an all-inclusive list, so if you think that there is image quality affecting factor which should have made the list, do let us know in the comments section below. For more such information, keep reading Tweak Library.