Photo size

[Brad]

When posting photos please be aware of the size of the image. Most digital cameras produce images way bigger than desirable for the forum.
Photos that require lots of scrolling to view on the screen are distracting.
I find that sizing a photo to 3x5 at 150 pixels per inch works well. Plenty clear, large enough to show detail.

Before posting a photo please look at the image size and pixel density and adjust it before posting.

 

[JWFilips]

Brad that is 450 Pixels X 750 Pixels in digital terms

 

[Brad]

Thanks JW.
I am guilty at times as I will take a photo with my phone and post directly from the phone. Those images are always way too big, or so says Rick.

 

[Rick]

How did I get involved here?

In addition those huge photos will really eat up the bandwidth, sooner or later that will have an effect on the function of the forum and the cost of running it.

 

[JWFilips]

I'm Guilty of it too, however I don't use one of those phone things!
In my job my world revolves around the "pixel" In imaging it is the purist form of measurement. the old day of "inch size X PPI" is one that belongs to the old world of offset printing. & Yes I size everything I post here at a max width of 1000px because this site takes it but from now on it will be 750 px wide for sure.
Good thing to know...Thanks

Do we have a feature here where we can delete images that we have stored for our threads Like that other place?

 

[Rick]

The picture on top is nearly 57k, the identical picture in the middle is nearly 2/3 smaller file size at 20k. There is no difference in picture quality, just in file (pixels) size. The bottom picture is only 13k.

All three photos are from the same original that had a file size of 1.5 meg, the top photo was simply reduced in size, the middle picture was run through software I have that reduces the pixels and leaves the picture the same dimensions. The bottom picture is the middle picture reduced in size again. Picture clarity is identical in all three. Saves a ton of disc space and bandwidth. ALL pictures on lasc.us have been so treated so that I can afford the bandwidth.

 

[Ben]

Rick,

You remind me of myself in my younger days.
I got blamed and tangled up in everything.

Ben

 

[Brad]

Jim, I don't know the answer to that one.

Rick, you got drawn in because NOBODY else has ever commented on the size of my photos. I understand you wanting my 100 yard revolver groups to get smaller but the photos of them too?

 

[Ian]

What about hosting the raw, jumbo file elsewhere and just posting the thumbnail link and let the reader decide to open it or not? That still eat up bandwidth?

I dumb-down my camera to 6 MP for general photo-taking, but haven't done a whole lot of editing. If I do more uploads I'll scale them down.

 

[troj]

What about hosting the raw, jumbo file elsewhere and just posting the thumbnail link and let the reader decide to open it or not? That still eat up bandwidth?

Hosting them somewhere like Imgur is actually a very good solution.

Anything online consumes bandwidth and storage. It's just a matter of whose bandwidth and storage. Imgur's role on the Internet is free image hosting, so they'll gladly provide that bandwidth and storage to all of us for free. It's a very easy to use site, too.

-Kevin

 

[JWFilips]

Many times I will put photo up on my own website ( I have a place called forumphotos) This works well for helping out with a forums burden of having to store members photos that have been posted in threads but there is a number of steps to go through to get them there, then here, for instance. Not Quick when you are excited about posting something "cool" as soon as you can
So the ease of direct upload when posting is far too tempting! Anyway I will be sure to do my part next photo posting. I'm sure every little bit is a help to keep things smooth running.

 

[Brad]

Is Imgur any different than Photobucket? I have been using Photobucket and have been pleased with the ease of use.

 

[Ian]

Hosting them somewhere like Imgur is actually a very good solution.

Anything online consumes bandwidth and storage. It's just a matter of whose bandwidth and storage. Imgur's role on the Internet is free image hosting, so they'll gladly provide that bandwidth and storage to all of us for free. It's a very easy to use site, too.

-Kevin

I generally host my photos off-site anyway based on the early talks about bandwidth and you guys footing the bill for the site. I uploaded an un-edited one in a hurry a few days ago, and was rather surprised it uploaded because the file was a lot larger than I thought the software here would take, when it went ok and was auto-resized I figured it was good to go, but I see we still need to do more to cut down on the data load of our photo files here. I still assume that off-site hosting of large image files (I don't know how to define that other than larger than the size we need to keep them under to upload directly) and linking them to here is ok and won't bog things down?

 

[Brad]

I will let Kevin answer that, he is the computer geek in the family.
I use Photobucket as it is easy. I can modify the photo on the computer, upload it, and then link to it.
My issue is in loading from my phone or IPad, they both seem to upload large photos.
Kevin has assured me that bandwidth, within reason, shouldn't be an issue. I tend to listen to him on stuff like that, it is how he makes what he calls a living!

 

[Ian]

I use photobucket most of the time too, and do my editing/cropping/resizing there or sometimes with Paint if I want to draw on it. The scenario I'm asking (Kevin) about is hard for me to describe because I don't know the correct terminology, but say I load a raw, 12 mega-pixel photo to PB and link it to a post here so it displays to the large size (not a thumbnail). Will displaying the link as people view the thread use excessive bandwidth vs. displaying an edited-down version hosted also by PB? In other words, if we host our photos on another server, do the files still need to be edited down for size in order to link them here or does letting the other site store the image data make resizing un-necessary?

 

[troj]

Photobucket and Imgur are equivalent -- different companies providing the same service.

As far as storage and bandwidth go, if you upload an image to this site directly, the hosting and bandwidth are provided by this site. If you upload an image to another service (Photobucket, Imgur, facebook, your own site, etc) then link to it here, then storage and bandwidth are provided by whomever is hosting the image.

Bandwidth is also always used by the user who's viewing the image.

Something to remember when uploading really large images is that there are people who are still on dialup. Contrary to what the phone companies and cable companies want you to believe, there are still areas without high speed Internet. It would likely surprise you to learn that some of them are in large cities.

-Kevin

 

[Rick]

If the photo isn't hosted here it will not use resources of this forum but will of course on the system where it is hosted. Links just like text use very little bandwidth or storage. It would be many, many pages of text and still wouldn't equal one 1 meg photo. No, you don't need to reduce file size of a picture hosted on Photo Bucket and linked here. The only thing here would be the link, a couple of bytes is all.

 

[Ian]

Ok, that makes it a little clearer, thanks for the replies. I understood the hosting difference, just was unclear on how much data got pulled through this site just by displaying a view of an image hosted elsewhere. I guess the link just hooks the end-user's computer up with the host directly.

So if I link like THIS, is it using any more board resources than.....


.......THIS?: http://i1328.photobucket.com/albums/w538/Geargnasher/thum_89094fc502f1054c8_zps73fff7a5.jpg

 

[Rick]

Should be the same size on disc on both photo bucket and here. For some reason this software doesn't allow file size to show in properties. Photo bucket doesn't allow properties it seems. However both pictures appear to be the same dimensions so the same picture should be the same size on disc. A picture that size shouldn't be a problem anyway, see post 6 in this thread for what I did with the same 1.5 meg photo, the bottom one is only 13k.

 

[Ian]

It's the same file, just two different ways of linking it here through Photobucket. My PB album is private, so that might be blocking info. The question is does the linking method that displays as a picture on this page use more of this board's resources than the direct link that takes the user directly to the Photobucket page in a new tab to view it?

If I use the "image" method of linking from Photobucket, which actually displays the photo in the post like your bullet photos rather than the script of the link itself, do I need to worry about the size of the file?