Directory image quality wonky

Discussions about the Ward Directory and Map tool on churchofjesuschrist.org.
cdw3423lds
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Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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Re: Directory image quality wonky

#11

Post by cdw3423lds »

Liz's brother here. I'm wondering if the software you are using is doing saving in such a way as to make the algorithm the used on the web site do odd things. Or if the picture has an odd combination of colors that makes that algorithm behave oddly. Because the image I uploaded, while not as good as the original, isn't that bad. I have put both on a web site so you can see for yourself. The original is 118k the other one is only 16k. Also you may notice the Original is a little blurry from camera shake.

http://ldsgeo.org/test/Original.jpg
http://ldsgeo.org/test/AfterUpload.jpg

Chris W
chriswoodut
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Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:42 am
Location: Utah

Re: Directory image quality wonky

#12

Post by chriswoodut »

cdw3423 wrote:Liz's brother here. I'm wondering if the software you are using is doing saving in such a way as to make the algorithm the used on the web site do odd things. Or if the picture has an odd combination of colors that makes that algorithm behave oddly. Because the image I uploaded, while not as good as the original, isn't that bad. I have put both on a web site so you can see for yourself. The original is 118k the other one is only 16k. Also you may notice the Original is a little blurry from camera shake.

http://ldsgeo.org/test/Original.jpg
http://ldsgeo.org/test/AfterUpload.jpg

Chris W
I recreated my 500x375 file using only MS Paint and the result was similar (poor). MS Paint output file was 126k and the file the website ended up with after tweaking it was 36k. Your sample actually looks pretty good.

The images when expanded (clicked on in the directory) look better than the smaller 200x150 image but even expanded they look poor. The smaller 200 x 150 image is the default image people see when using the directory (I would guess it is really just a resized image via the img tag and not a second image file that the website created).

I'll see if I can private msg you the files.

When I browse the ward list, I see other images that are bad quality as well.
cdw3423lds
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Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 4:23 pm
Location: Oklahoma City, OK USA
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Re: Directory image quality wonky

#13

Post by cdw3423lds »

I saw your images. The jpeg artifacts are much more noticeable in your image than mine. There are a few reasons for that. 1) I have 1 face, you have 4. 2)My image doesn't have many sharp lines, especially sharp lines that have an abrupt color change. Your image has several sharp lines with abrupt color changes, like the black tie on white shirt, the blue dress against the skin.

Obviously there isn't much you can do about all the sharp lines and color changes. The only thing I can suggest is to crop that image as tight as you can before you resize it. I cropped down to about 60% of it's original width. Obviously that isn't the ideal composition, but you can still see everyone's face which is the most important. Cropping it that much will help, It's hard to say how much until you try it.

I will send you my cropped version of your image in a private message so you can see how tight I made it.

Chris W

P.S. It seems the Church is using a compression factor of 50, if they would back that off by 10 or 15, I don't think this would be an issue. You can probably get a good idea of what it will look like by setting your jpeg compression to the half way point like the web site is doing.
mevans
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Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 1:52 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: Directory image quality wonky

#14

Post by mevans »

Unless the church has changed something very recently (like in the last week or two), uploaded photos look fine for me. I've uploaded a lot of photos over the last few months and some ward members have also uploaded photos and they all look fine.
chriswoodut
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Posts: 417
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:42 am
Location: Utah

Re: Directory image quality wonky

#15

Post by chriswoodut »

cdw3423 wrote: P.S. It seems the Church is using a compression factor of 50, if they would back that off by 10 or 15, I don't think this would be an issue. You can probably get a good idea of what it will look like by setting your jpeg compression to the half way point like the web site is doing.
I noticed they were about 50 as well when I was playing with my compression. It's pretty clear the quality level they have chosen doesn't work across all photo styles that members are likely to use and this quality level needs to be looked at again.

Previously when I saw the other ward members' pictures that look bad, I assumed they had used a really poor cell phone camera or something to take them. Now it is clear that the website processing made them bad. :(

We have one or two people in our ward that work for the church in development. Maybe I can get some inside pressure to fix it.
zaneclark
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Joined: Thu Jan 24, 2008 4:34 pm
Location: Las Vegas, NV
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Re: Directory image quality wonky

#16

Post by zaneclark »

After reading these posts, I checked the photos in my directory and they were all good, including some very recent uploads.....
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