Photo size

[Rick]

With the photo posted here as link there is no need to make it a link and take the reader to photo bucket to view the same photo. If you used a thumbnail photo as a link to a full size photo on photo bucket it would save resources of this forum. But again, a picture that size isn't a problem.

Using this as the link doesn't use the resources of the picture as a link but I think the photo posted here as part of the post is more valuable to readers, just not huge pictures. There are numerous programs that can crop and resize pictures greatly reducing both dimensions and file size.
http://s1328.photobucket.com/user/Geargnasher/media/thum_89094fc502f1054c8_zps73fff7a5.jpg.html

Posting pictures here isn't a problem, posting really big pictures could become a problem. Just resize them and all should be good.

 

[Ben]

Rick

Do you have a preference on these two photos ?

The 1st is 320 X 240 display size .
Posted & Hosted by Photobucket.
Does our site pay more for the larger photo to be shown here ?

Ben



Here is a 640 X 480

 

[Rick]

Sure that's fine Ben, that picture is only 18.3k. Even a tad bigger should be fine. Posting pictures like that isn't the problem, it's the big file size pictures that start eating up bandwidth & server space.

 

[Ben]

OK,

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Rick]

That should give you an idea, the smaller picture is 18k, the larger one is 168k. Big difference in just dimension of the picture isn't there? That is data that this sites server has to store (the storage) and it's data that this server has to upload (bandwidth) to every person that views the page every time they load the page (view it). Over time and with more and more members you can see where that adds up to more and more bandwidth used for the same picture. In addition as Kevin mentioned, there are still people on dialup connections, they have to wait and wait for files that large to upload to their computer.

 

[smokeywolf]

Usually take my pictures with the phone. It typically outputs a 1 to 2 Mb file. Before uploading to a website I usally downsize to 200 to 400 Kb.

 

[JWFilips]

For years the standard internet photo size has been 640 px x 480 pix. Depending on content of the photo & compression of the Jpeg logarithm It can be small or large in storage size. If you had a photo of a rife on a white background the "storage size of even a 2000 pixel wide image would be quite small because the white background reads as 0 and it completely compressed. On the other hand a small 640 pixel photo of a landscape with a lot of small details can be quite large in storage size because the Jpeg logarithm compression to is not as much.
The best way to adjust photo dimension vs photo storage size is to use an image editing program such as Photoshop ( far too expensive for the average person) however there are a lot of free apps now available on line also most digital camera download programs can do it if you read the instructions.

The worse thing to do is shoot your images too small in your camera ( because you are faced with limitations posting on a site) You need to shoot the photos as large as you can then edit a copy for posting! Nothing like shooting a beautiful photo only to find out that the camera size setting is wrong and you only have a small screen image instead of a nice printable image file. One has to learn the fine arts of boolit casting, but as well, they need the learn the fine arts of cast boolit posting

 

[Brad]

That is good info Jim. I wasn't aware that a white background would reduce image size that much.
It is handy to have a true photo professional on hand.
I use Photoshop and will start looking to make my photos the 640x480 pixel size, or as close as I can.

 

[JWFilips]

Brad,
In my profession I spend 50% of my time editing and retouching images, When I look back about 30 years ago 1987 That is when our studio started in the digital revolution. I started with Photoshop 2.0. when I ordered our first digital editing computer i remember the guy saying "You want a 100 mb hard drive! why that is huge!" now days the file I work on are between 800mb & 1.5 gig on average. Storage is on multiple terabyte hard drives.

I think if folks here use a photo-service to host their images I think it will not affect the storage lints of this forum because they don't exist on your server.
I know one forum I am on actually has a separate free photo account instead of the image being uploaded to the forums's server they get loaded to the free photo hosting server and are linked from the threads. ie: when you click the photo link ( small thumbnail) a new widow appears ( from the photo hosting site) with the large photo that is referenced to in the thread. The Forum allows a small thumbnail to reside in the thread which hardly takes up and space on the server.

 

[smokeywolf]

Jim, you want to teach them the difference between a lossy vs. lossless compression scheme?

Just a little tease.

Did a lot of work with Sony Pictures High Definition Center some 20 years ago. You can imagine how big files get when they contain 32,000 high definition images (2,000 ft. of motion picture film). Plus, if each frame of film registers (is positioned) just one pixel off from the previous one, it means that the CCD or CMOS array is getting remapped from frame to frame.

 

[JWFilips]

Well That is to confuse them!
and for what we do it is irelevant: There is no such thing as Lossless compression in JPEG! Jpeg is a "lossy compression" only but it can be controlled to some extent. "Lossless" Compression in Photos is only in tiff or RAW format images and does not pertain to any of the still images we post on line.
Lossless compression helps up control file size with out degradation on multiple "saves". You can not save a Jpeg multiple times with out it coming apart soner or later.

 

[Ian]

Thank you, Jim, for post #27, very informative.

 

[carpetman]

Yes I'm at a loss for compression. Do I need to tell my doctor?

 

[smokeywolf]

GIF is also a lossless compression scheme. Don't know if it's usable here, but I did post a GIF recently on a website.

"Yes I'm at a loss for compression. Do I need to tell my doctor?"
Could have used a lossy compression scheme on the kidney stone that I was trying to pass last Saturday night in the ER.

 

[carpetman]

Smokey, I had my gall bladder removed, but still had a gall stone. The bladder collects them, not make them. It is believed it passed through my pancreas. Talk about pain. They said it was probably no bigger than a pin head.

 

[JWFilips]

GIF isn't a good photo format. it is best used for graphs, charts, illustrations, graphics etc. It does not allow subtile tone transitions that photos have. Yes you can use a photo as a GIF but it doesn't have photo quality. PNG is another lossless format To a certain extent it bridges the gap between GIF & Jpeg Allowing for more flexability.

 

[JWFilips]

Rick & Brad,
After all these discussions about images; I'm still trying to understand if the problem is one of "Bandwith" ( the amount of imformation passing back & forth thru the internet pipeline)? Or is it a problem of storage space on this server? Members hosting their images off site and posting links to them will fix the latter but not the former.
The more a Server based Forum need to disseminate and also access information the more bandwith it will use. ie: the more members reading & posting the more bandwith is necessary. Just trying to understand the situation.

 

[Brad]

I will need to ask Kevin. When the forum was initially set up he assured me that bandwidth and storage were not issues.

 

[Ben]

Yes, I think we need clarification on this issue .

I , for one, don't want to be doing something that is going to cost someone else $$$.

Ben

 

[Brad]

I sent a text to Kevin asking him to answer the server/bandwidth question. That is his area of expertise.