How can i make such great thumbnails
 

Hi there,

i know my thumbs are not the best, but I thought they are average compared with other thumb sites.
I have small ones: 120x160 and I don't want to raise it, even i think its not necessary to have that big ones.
Today I stumpled upon: http://www.youngleafs.com/st/niches/outdoor.shtml
and I started thinking about my thumbs quality.
But how can i make such great thumbs???
I'm familiar with php and GD Library also some filter and sharping, but on that thumbs, it's not just optimizing, it's gettin the hell all out of the worst image!!

So please guy, let me know how to create such great thumbs as I have seen on youngleafs.com. There must be an perfect rendering algorithm i don't know!

Thanks for your help

First of all, never ever use php and GD for resizing images if you're concerned about quality.
Secondly, many of those thumbs weren't just resized, they were touched up before and afterwards... likely in Photoshop.

thanks StuartD for the hint, so what should i use instead php&GD ?? I tried Imagemagic put the difference to gd is not worth..

Try Arles

http://www.digitaldutch.com/arles

Touched up in photoshop

Up the contrast
Up the brightness
Adjust lighting levels
run surface blur

It's more time intensive with photoshop, but the results are well worth it, there is no other solution if you want perfect quality :2 cents:

ok touched up in photoshop I understand that part.
is it legal to alter FHG pics in anyway?
I thought I did read on several sponsors sign ups that its not.
Cropping is one thing and I know alot of webmasters crop out the watermarks but is it all ok?

I use photoshop on my thumbs, it was easy to get started, found some decent tutorials, set up actions for specific blurs and lightening and now I can bang off 20 in no time at all

Yes I agree that you can do great thumbs with photoshop.
But I know there are great thumb scripts out there, and on good sites with that quality of thumbs, all thumbs look the same or the same way edited/resampled. It must be some kind of automatismSo if there is something out there plz let me know...