Simviation Forum - New Image Size Limit

Reply #15 - Feb 28^th, 2010 at 6:48pm

SeanTK Ex Member

Also be aware that as a general rule, areas with shades of red or yellow (yellow you can sometimes get away with if it makes up most of the shot) don't usually cooperate well with compression. I would love to be proven wrong on that though!

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Reply #16 - Feb 28^th, 2010 at 6:49pm

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Quote:

Also be aware that as a general rule, areas with shades of red or yellow don't usually cooperate well with compression. I would love to be proven wrong on that though!

I would say that green is the most graphics intensive colour.

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Reply #17 - Mar 2^nd, 2010 at 5:20pm

CD. Ex Member

Ratio isn't an issue here, the file size is. I was a mod when Pete raised the file size from 100kb to 150kb and the image size to 1024w from 800w. The general consensus then was this was a good move. Times change, I'm sure most people have faster connections now, the main reason for capping size and ratios was for members on dial-up, I'd be interested if any of us are still on that now. Maybe a poll is needed?

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Reply #18 - Mar 2^nd, 2010 at 5:23pm

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Quote:

Ratio isn't an issue here, the file size is. I was a mod when Pete raised the file size from 100kb to 150kb and the image size to 1024w from 800w. The general consensus then was this was a good move. Times change, I'm sure most people have faster connections now, the main reason for capping size and ratios was for members on dial-up, I'd be interested if any of us are still on that now. Maybe a poll is needed?

Poll idea is good.

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Reply #19 - Mar 3^rd, 2010 at 5:15am

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The poll idea is a great one, and may provide some push, but it REALLY needs to be somewhere that will get some traffic and be seen, without being in a spot where another mod might move it.

We had that widescreen/regular screen poll a while back, when image width came up, and it was no contest. Maybe a dozen people out of 100 had a regular non-wide screen monitor.

I bet the same will hold true for connection speed.

I really like Machineman9's point about the thread limit, and how to utilize that limit with your shots, (one 600k shot vs. 4 150k shots). Smiley

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Reply #20 - Mar 3^rd, 2010 at 5:57am

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Quote:

Also be aware that as a general rule, areas with shades of red or yellow (yellow you can sometimes get away with if it makes up most of the shot) don't usually cooperate well with compression. I would love to be proven wrong on that though!

It is wrong I am afraid. Image compression works on byte patterns, the colour is irrelevant. Reds and yellow just generate different byte patterns to compress.

http://www.digital-essence.co.uk/misc/fsx/red.jpg
http://www.digital-essence.co.uk/misc/fsx/green.jpg
http://www.digital-essence.co.uk/misc/fsx/blue.jpg
http://www.digital-essence.co.uk/misc/fsx/cyan.jpg
http://www.digital-essence.co.uk/misc/fsx/yellow.jpg

You will get slight variations in size due to the sequences of bytes at the beginning and the end which can influence the pattern recognition.

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Reply #21 - Mar 3^rd, 2010 at 6:02am

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ShaneG wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2010 at 5:15am:

The poll idea is a great one, and may provide some push, but it REALLY needs to be somewhere that will get some traffic and be seen, without being in a spot where another mod might move it.

We had that widescreen/regular screen poll a while back, when image width came up, and it was no contest. Maybe a dozen people out of 100 had a regular non-wide screen monitor.

I bet the same will hold true for connection speed.

If you analyse the server logs, you should be able to see how many users (if any) are not hitting the download limits on the free site. If everyone is hitting the 30Kb/s limit, then they should be okay with most images of decent sizes. Anyone who has paid for Premium acces is probably downloading much faster, as that is the major benefit of membership.

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Reply #22 - Mar 13^th, 2010 at 11:24pm

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Mr Shanks wrote on Feb 28^th, 2010 at 12:58pm:

olderndirt wrote on Feb 28^th, 2010 at 12:11pm:

Leigh wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2010 at 6:27am:

it is hard but you can still get some very crisp shots with a 150kb

Please give me a short tutorial - I know you're correct - the evidence is here, unfortunately not under my user name

.

Its the compression that kills a screen shot.

If you have a 'save for web' option on your editing software, use that instead and move the slider till you are just under the 150kb limit. I generally aim for 100kb per shot.

A very good point... I see a lot of complaining in these forums about how "compression killed the shot", then I look at the image "weight" and see that the poster took their 400KB masterpiece and saved it at less than 50K or something like that.
I also aim for about 100, and with the GIMP, it's easy...before you "save as" at the new file size, you can adjust the quality percentage and see the resulting weight before you save. This allows you to maximize the quality but keep it within forum limits.

I'm sure other commonly-used editing programs have similar features... worth remembering when the size limit is eventually increased, yet people still whine about how "compression killed it". Grin

I've also pretty much given up on images over 800 pixels wide...it allows just about every user to see the whole image without scrolling, and that size- or even smaller- can be incredibly effective if it's a good image.

As for thread limits, I find that 5 or 6 photos or screenshots is usually plenty for a single thread... nothing enhances your editing skills like having a limit. Wink

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Reply #23 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 3:53am

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beaky wrote on Mar 13^th, 2010 at 11:24pm:

A very good point... I see a lot of complaining in these forums about how "compression killed the shot", then I look at the image "weight" and see that the poster took their 400KB masterpiece and saved it at less than 50K or something like that.

I couldn't agree more. It's a case of people blaming the rules when the fault lies with their lack of knowledge on working with images.

Quote:

I also aim for about 100, and with the GIMP, it's easy...before you "save as" at the new file size, you can adjust the quality percentage and see the resulting weight before you save. This allows you to maximize the quality but keep it within forum limits.

I'm sure other commonly-used editing programs have similar features... worth remembering when the size limit is eventually increased, yet people still whine about how "compression killed it". Grin

........................

As for thread limits, I find that 5 or 6 photos or screenshots is usually plenty for a single thread... nothing enhances your editing skills like having a limit. Wink

If you look at screenshots & photos posted by the real masters you will see what can be done within the limits. This is all part of the skill involved & I've seen some incredible images posted here over the years. You don't need expensive or complicated software to do it, just a basic understanding of how it works & the best way to achieve the result you want. All the software I tested in this topic has a Save for Web or similar feature --> Resize experiment

For anyone having problems resizing/saving images for posting on the Internet I suggest trying some of them to see which one suits you.

PS. I was thinking of doing a tute showing how to resize/save images with some of the popular free software & posting it at my Lair. Then I wondered how many people it's aimed at would actually bother to read it. Undecided

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Reply #24 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 4:40am

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Hagar wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 3:53am:

.

PS. I was thinking of doing a tute showing how to resize/save images with some of the popular free software & posting it at my Lair. Then I wondered how many people it's aimed at would actually bother to read it. Undecided

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Reply #25 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 5:40am

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Hagar wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 3:53am:

PS. I was thinking of doing a tute showing how to resize/save images with some of the popular free software & posting it at my Lair. Then I wondered how many people it's aimed at would actually bother to read it. Undecided

If you make that tutorial, I'll make it a sticky it in the Freeware section. Smiley

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Reply #26 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 7:40am

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ShaneG wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 5:40am:

Hagar wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 3:53am:

PS. I was thinking of doing a tute showing how to resize/save images with some of the popular free software & posting it at my Lair. Then I wondered how many people it's aimed at would actually bother to read it. Undecided

If you make that tutorial, I'll make it a sticky it in the Freeware section. Smiley

And I would read it! I could use some advice.

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Reply #27 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 10:03am

Hagar Offline
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Steve M wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 7:40am:

ShaneG wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 5:40am:

Hagar wrote on Mar 14^th, 2010 at 3:53am:

PS. I was thinking of doing a tute showing how to resize/save images with some of the popular free software & posting it at my Lair. Then I wondered how many people it's aimed at would actually bother to read it. Undecided

If you make that tutorial, I'll make it a sticky it in the Freeware section. Smiley

And I would read it! I could use some advice.

OK. I'll give it some thought. It might be better in separate sections for each piece of software as each one has its own little quirks. Here's a list of suitable software, all unconditional freeware. Which one do you suggest I start with?

BDSizer
GIMP
IrfanView
Magix Xtreme Photo Designer 6
Paint.NET
PhotoFiltre
Photo Pos Pro
PhotoScape

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Reply #28 - Mar 14^th, 2010 at 10:12am