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Attachment request

Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:18 pm
by bigone5500
I'd like to request that photo attachments in forum threads be increased to 350KB.

Pweety Pweeze.... :mrgreen:

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:25 am
by Alan_L
I don't see any reason to need that. All it means is you're going to have a lot of photos that are compressed with higher quality than needed, and a site that is slower to load -- perhaps unbearably so for those who are still on dial-up.

Why do you want the limit higher?

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 9:47 pm
by bigone5500
Alan_L wrote:I don't see any reason to need that. All it means is you're going to have a lot of photos that are compressed with higher quality than needed, and a site that is slower to load -- perhaps unbearably so for those who are still on dial-up.

Why do you want the limit higher?
I take photos with my Nikon D60 at the highest quality in jpg format and when I resize them with ACDSee Pro at 800x600, they usually end up at around 300K to 450K. Original filesize is anywhere from 3.5MB to 5MB. I guess I can just start resizing them to 15% of their original resolution which cuts them down pretty good.

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 11:17 pm
by Alan_L
There are two properties that determine the filesize of a JPEG image: 1) resolution 2) quality (or compression amount)

I haven't used a recent version of ACDSee for a long time, but there should be a setting somewhere that says what quality setting to use. That's usually a number. Let's say it's 0 - 100, where 100 is the highest quality (uses the least compression, meaning biggest filesize). The scale may be different in your app. Setting it to 100 is not necessary and is actually wasteful -- it's saving more visual information than your eye can detect. You can probably set it to 75 or even lower and not be able to see any visual difference, other than the file size going WAY down.

For instance, I use Picasa and it recommends using "85" on a scale of 1-100. I set it to "65" and it looks just fine. For example, click here for a 1024 x 686 image that's only 91 KB.

There are many more examples of images on my website (click link in my signature).

I'd much rather see the maximum image resolution increased from 1000 to something larger than see the KB limit increased. I hate clicking on a photo that somebody submits just to see it at the same size or only very slightly larger. I want to see it BIG! :)

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:50 am
by bigone5500
Alan_L wrote:There are two properties that determine the filesize of a JPEG image: 1) resolution 2) quality (or compression amount)

I haven't used a recent version of ACDSee for a long time, but there should be a setting somewhere that says what quality setting to use. That's usually a number. Let's say it's 0 - 100, where 100 is the highest quality (uses the least compression, meaning biggest filesize). The scale may be different in your app. Setting it to 100 is not necessary and is actually wasteful -- it's saving more visual information than your eye can detect. You can probably set it to 75 or even lower and not be able to see any visual difference, other than the file size going WAY down.

For instance, I use Picasa and it recommends using "85" on a scale of 1-100. I set it to "65" and it looks just fine. For example, click here for a 1024 x 686 image that's only 91 KB.

There are many more examples of images on my website (click link in my signature).

I'd much rather see the maximum image resolution increased from 1000 to something larger than see the KB limit increased. I hate clicking on a photo that somebody submits just to see it at the same size or only very slightly larger. I want to see it BIG! :)
You know, that may just do it. I know what setting you are talking about. Usually it's at default of 92 or so. I'll set it to 72dpi and see what happens.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 2:57 am
by bigone5500
I think I got it! Here's a test image. Resized at 72dpi resolution.
P. nigra 'Henon' shoot ~8" tall
P. nigra 'Henon' shoot ~8" tall

Re: Attachment request

Posted: Tue Apr 06, 2010 11:47 am
by Alan_L
DPI is used for printing (dots per inch). If it actually *is* the dpi setting you're changing, that's not the right one. You want the "Image Quality" slider that might be in an "options" dialog?

Besides, you only got the file down to 199KB. You can do probably get it to half of that. :)

(May not seem important, but there are still forum members who use dial-up, and image files that are 1/3 the size load 3 times faster.)