# Were my photos resized?..



## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

Hi,

Perhaps you can help me solve a mystery with a Sony camera...

I've received photos from a photographer, and they were quite low resolution/size (2768 x 1848) - I wasn't happy with the quality and also it surprised me to get such a low res from a professional photographer.

I told him he probably used the wrong setting and shot low res. After a lot of discussions, he gave me an "uncompressed version" of the photos, the resolution of them was 5066 x 3382

I didn't notice any change in the quality, and I started to research, and found out in the photo tag that it was taken with Sony ILCE-7SM2 - when I looked on the specs of this camera here , I saw several photo sizes listed for this camera - but 5066 x 3382 is not one of them....

 Is it possible that he just resized the low resolution photos?.. I mean, I know it's possible technically, but I wouldn't want to blame him without being 100% sure - is the spec of the camera enough to prove it, or do such cameras can also shoot in custom sizes? Any other hard evidence I can look for? 

Thanks


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## ClickAddict (Nov 23, 2017)

He may have cropped it in editing. Take a 1000X1000 (fictitious numbers) photo of you, your dog and large building in background.  Decides to cut out most of the building... results in 1000X500.  You look up camera it says it only shoots in 1000X1000 or 2000X2000 and wonder why he has 1000X500.

As for quality... that's another problem.  you can have very high resolution photos, but if there was camera shake / missed focus / bad exposure..... you will have poor quality.


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## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

Thanks - a few clarifications:
1) It is not one photo, they are ~400 photos all in the same size/resolution (So unlikely all were cropped)
2) The end size/resolution I got was actually higher than any spec that this camera can take - so cropping is not even an option - what I suspect is that because I complained on a low resolution he just resized that photos upwards...

The question is - can this camera take photos of 5066 x 3382 ?


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## astroNikon (Nov 23, 2017)

Generally as a photographer you do not provide a full size image to a customer.

First of all 400 photos would be gigantic.  For instance a full size image may be 24mb in size, so that would require 9,600 mb or 9.6 gigabytes

Thus generally a photographer provides a low res image for review.  These are generally can be sent by email whereas a full size image may be too big for many email systems.

This camera though has a lower resolution than many current Full Frame camera

But keep in mind the real question is how were the photos "post processed" which could create the larger file sizes than what you think the camera may be able to do.

Specs of a SONY 7S II 12.2 megapixel camera

RECORDING FORMAT (STILL IMAGES)
JPEG (DCF Ver. 2.0, Exif ver. 2.3, MPF baseline compliant), RAW (Sony ARW 2.3 format)

IMAGE SIZE (PIXELS), 3:2
35 mm full frame L: 4240 x 2832 (12M), M: 2768 x 1848 (5.1M), S: 2128 x 1416 (3.0M), APS-C L: 2768 x 1848 (5.1M), M: 2128 x 1416 (3.0M), S: 1376 x 920 (1.3M)

IMAGE SIZE (PIXELS), 16:9
35 mm full frame L: 4240 x 2384 (10M), M: 2768 x 1560 (4.3M), S: 2128 x 1200 (2.6M), APS-C L: 2768 x 1560 (4.3M), M: 2128 x 1200 (2.6M), S: 1376 x 776 (1.1M)

IMAGE SIZE (PIXELS), SWEEP PANORAMA
Wide: Horizontal 12416 x 1856 (23M), vertical 5536 x 2160 (12M), Standard: Horizontal 8192 x 1856 (15M), vertical 3872 x 2160 (8.4M)


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## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

Thanks astroNikon - by your answer and clickAddict's answer I understand I may have not explained myself well.

I'm not complaining about getting low size photos - because in the end he did send me the supposedly full size photos - TIF files at the size of  5066 x 3382 pixels each - and indeed it all weighed ~9GB (not terabyte)

What I suspect that the original photos were taken at a much lower setting (i.e. 2768 x 1848) and because I told him that is an unacceptable size - he just resized the photos by using photoshop or similar.

Again, the question is very simple: Can Sony ILCE-7SM2 take photos of 5066 x 3382 ?
If the answer is NO, then it means he just manipulated the photos to technically make them appear of a higher size/resolution
if the answer is YES, then perhaps indeed the originals were of that size.


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## astroNikon (Nov 23, 2017)

JustAskin said:


> Again, the question is very simple: Can Sony ILCE-7SM2 take photos of 5066 x 3382 ?
> If the answer is NO, then it means he just manipulated the photos to technically make them appear of a higher size/resolution
> if the answer is YES, then perhaps indeed the originals were of that size.


Well, it all depends.
If you look at the specs it depends upon "how" he took the image ....

IMAGE SIZE (PIXELS), 3:2
35 mm full frame L: 4240 x 2832 (12M)

versus

IMAGE SIZE (PIXELS), SWEEP PANORAMA
Wide: Horizontal 12416 x 1856 (23M)

clearly, the answer is YES, but a "depends how he took the image"

Plus you don't understand post processing.  The size of a RAW file, versus JPEG, versus TIFF can all be different.  The image is originally saved in the camera as a RAW file, for example.  Then Exported after tweaking/modifying, etc into TIFF / JPEG etc. PLUS with different horizontal and vertical pixel counts.

So your answer is not a clear Yes/No.


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## Ysarex (Nov 23, 2017)

astroNikon said:


> Generally as a photographer you do not provide a full size image to a customer.
> 
> First of all 400 photos would be gigantic.  For instance a full size image may be 24mb in size, so that would require 9,600 mb or 9.6 terabytes



Little problem with your math there. 400 image files at 24mb each will not = 9.6 terabytes. It wouldn't even be close to 1 terabyte.

Joe



astroNikon said:


> Thus generally a photographer provides a low res image for review.  These are generally can be sent by email whereas a full size image may be too big for many email systems.
> 
> This camera though has a lower resolution than many current Full Frame camera
> 
> ...


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## astroNikon (Nov 23, 2017)

yup, typo of gigabytes.


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## Ysarex (Nov 23, 2017)

JustAskin said:


> Thanks astroNikon - by your answer and clickAddict's answer I understand I may have not explained myself well.
> 
> I'm not complaining about getting low size photos - because in the end he did send me the supposedly full size photos - TIF files at the size of  5066 x 3382 pixels each - and indeed it all weighed ~9GB (not terabyte)
> 
> ...



The answer is NO. The max resolution of that camera is 4240 x 2832.



JustAskin said:


> If the answer is NO, then it means he just manipulated the photos to technically make them appear of a higher size/resolution



Correct.



JustAskin said:


> if the answer is YES, then perhaps indeed the originals were of that size.



It's a fair assumption that the originals were 4240 x 2832. Whether he generated the 5066 X 3382 from the originals or from the versions he gave you remains unknown.

Joe


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## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

astroNikon - I admit I'm no expert (and thanks for explaining)
But, while the Panorama size caught my attention at first, I don't think it can be that - because the max height there (1856) is much lower than what I got (3382) and also it can be clearly seen that all photos are not panorama photos.
It seems to me that the max non-panorma image size this camera can take is 4240 x 2832 and this is why I suspected that these 5066 x 3382 images were manipulated. 

As for post processing, I understand that the resulting image can go through a lot of changes - but my assumption is that is an image is let's say 1000 x 1000 (just for round numbers sake..) the photographer has no good reason to scale it up to 2000 x 2000 unless they are trying to prove their photos were taken at a higher resolution/size - isn't that the case?

For example, if I have an old camera that can only take 4MP photos - and the photographer would hand me 12MP photos - what's the use case of that?


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## astroNikon (Nov 23, 2017)

JustAskin said:


> astroNikon - I admit I'm no expert (and thanks for explaining)
> But, while the Panorama size caught my attention at first, I don't think it can be that - because the max height there (1856) is much lower than what I got (3382) and also it can be clearly seen that all photos are not panorama photos.
> It seems to me that the max non-panorma image size this camera can take is 4240 x 2832 and this is why I suspected that these 5066 x 3382 images were manipulated.
> 
> ...


Keep in mind that we have NOT seen any of the original or newer photos that he has sent you.
Thus we can only speculate.

Now if you want to post those photos .. then that would give us much more information to work on rather than speculation.


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## Ysarex (Nov 23, 2017)

JustAskin said:


> astroNikon - I admit I'm no expert (and thanks for explaining)
> But, while the Panorama size caught my attention at first, I don't think it can be that - because the max height there (1856) is much lower than what I got (3382) and also it can be clearly seen that all photos are not panorama photos.
> It seems to me that the max non-panorma image size this camera can take is 4240 x 2832 and this is why I suspected that these 5066 x 3382 images were manipulated.



That is the logical conclusion.



JustAskin said:


> As for post processing, I understand that the resulting image can go through a lot of changes - but my assumption is that is an image is let's say 1000 x 1000 (just for round numbers sake..) the photographer has no good reason to scale it up to 2000 x 2000 unless they are trying to prove their photos were taken at a higher resolution/size - isn't that the case?



Correct. As a general rule post processing steps do not upscale image resolution. It is possible, but the more likely case is that cropping reduces resolution.

Joe



JustAskin said:


> For example, if I have an old camera that can only take 4MP photos - and the photographer would hand me 12MP photos - what's the use case of that?


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## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

Thanks Ysarex for the answers
astroNikon - As for the photos you can download one of them here
Let me know if you see anything odd..


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## Ysarex (Nov 23, 2017)

JustAskin said:


> Thanks Ysarex for the answers
> astroNikon - As for the photos you can download one of them here
> Let me know if you see anything odd..



Your TIFF file was processed using Adobe Lightroom from a camera original .ARW (Sony raw) file. Lightroom does have the capacity to upscale the image and that's likely where the resolution increase comes from. The camera original was 4240 x 2832.

Joe


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## ClickAddict (Nov 23, 2017)

Are any of these photos composites?  If I take a photo of you at 1000X1000 and one of your dog (1000X1000), open them both up in Photoshop and put them together in a new document of 2000X1000 without any loss of quality.  That would be one way of increasing size, but you should know if they were composites, which you did not mention.  (Similarly did he perhaps add some extra "sky" in the background over your head to give a better composition if he had shot it too tight?)


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## Derrel (Nov 23, 2017)

"I didn't notice any change in the quality," you wrote. And that's one reason he sent you down-sized images.


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## vintagesnaps (Nov 23, 2017)

Is the reason that you weren't happy with the quality just the resolution? This one to me seems like it might have been better shot tighter and/or framed differently, but everyone has their own style and sometimes with events you can't always get the best vantage point. Maybe the res isn't really the issue or the only issue.


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## Dave442 (Nov 23, 2017)

First off, the image looks about as one might expect being taken at ISO 6400 - some visible noise. I have an older camera with about the same resolution and I would see that amount of noise at ISO 1600. However, the images usually print out very good at 8"x10". I find the solution is to just not look at the images zoomed in 1:1 on the screen unless actually in the process of manipulating the image. Joe noted this TIFF file was processed and exported in Lightroom using the Sony RAW file so that would make the original a full resolution image. 

With the lens used it looks like it was shot at or close to wide open with a lens that still gives some depth of field - so a fair amount is still in acceptable focus, and of course the photographer wanted a high enough shutter speed (in this case 1/200th) to stop motion of the presenter; hence the high ISO.  

It looks like there were lights for video. In this particular image the people in the audience are closer to those lights and are well lit up, while the presenter is of course receiving less light being farther away.  A difficult lighting situation, and it looks like the photographer struck a balance.

I have supplied TIFF files to customers without doing anything to the images other than exporting to the TIFF format (where one can specify the image size) as the customer is then going to manipulate for use in their marketing materials. However, for most event photos I do some basic post processing - depending on the stated final use for the images - and supply those to the customer (this may be in images for initial review, then final in both small size for web and large size for print or the prints themselves).


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## JustAskin (Nov 23, 2017)

Thanks all for the answers - 
clickAddict - it's not composition as you can see in the sample photo I provided - it is one whole photo.

vintagesnaps - it is definitely not only the resolution - I think it is poor quality in general, if you zoom just a bit closer on the speaker you can see she is very grainy - I think more light should have been applied (he did not use flash, in this case maybe he should) - these are conference photos, and past photos I had speakers looked very clear even when zooming in.
It's just that resolution is a "hard" metric, so it's easier for me to start with that.

dave442 - nice analisys and you are correct about the lighting that was present in the back. But I think in the balance of things - the speaker should look better, since the audience is not really the focus point - not really worth it focusing on them and sacrifice the quality of how the speaker looks.


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