Tech Forum

Anyone having any luck with getting photos on the new Beta Directory that look half way decent?

I've tried following all of the suggestions and guidelines on getting a decent picture uploaded, but whatever processing happens on the web server at upload time really does a number on the photo. I've tired several file formats and being sure I had square dimensions.

I cropped a photo to 1800 pixels x 1800 pixels, then resized it in half, and then in a third to get to 300 x 300. (I realize the third is probably not an ideal jump in resizing, but it was the best I could do; the source image didn't have 2400 on one of the dimensions). I used the .png and .jpg file formats, which I figured PNG would keep the quality up and the source image I uploaded looked terrific. But apparently the Church changed it into a JPG. And even when I upload a JPG that meets all the requirements, I'm still seeing a different, pixelated image from what I uploaded. Are they changing the JPG quality or compression or something?

Then there's the issue where the Church makes a thumbnail of the image you uploaded, and it doesn't look like it's a very clean resize algorithm. I decided on 300 x 300, because it appeared to make a 150 x 150 thumbnail which should be a good resize ratio of one-half.

So I just looked again, and it looks like they are taking my image and resizing it up to 375 x 375, the maximum amount on one of the dimensions. Oh no, don't do that please! If I'm under your limit, leave the image alone please! And then to go from a 375 x 375 to a 150 x 150 thumbnail? That is not a good resizing ratio.

I don't know what I'm talking about! :rolleyes: Trust me, it took me a while to get my avatar image respectable on these forums! Maybe someone can give me some suggestions. Thanks in advance.

Ok, I just tried doing a 2000 x 2000 image, with resizes of 75% (3/4) and then 25% (1/4) to get down to 375 x 375. The 375 x 375 image that is showing is 5.5 KB smaller than the one I uploaded, which was 34.2 KB JPG and it looked good (and it must be the most important 5 KB lost because that's where all the quality was apparently ). And the thumbnail is still 150 x 150, which is a horrible resize ratio from 375 x 375.

Still not sure what to make of it.

mkmurray wrote:Anyone having any luck with getting photos on the new Beta Calendar that look half way decent?

I'm missing something. Photos? In the Calendar?

Something you might check is to right-click and save the displayed image and then check to see what the dimensions of the saved file is.

I've seen some web page authors use image attributes to force the browser to resize the photo. IE is a horrid resizer. I don't know about IE8, but the older versions would downsize by simply dropping rows of pixels rather than re-interpreting the pixels.

RussellHltn wrote:I'm missing something. Photos? In the Calendar?

LOL, Directory I mean. I said Directory in every other place on the page (thread title, thread tags, etc.). I've updated my first post to fix the typo.

RussellHltn wrote:Something you might check is to right-click and save the displayed image and then check to see what the dimensions of the saved file is.

I've seen some web page authors use image attributes to force the browser to resize the photo. IE is a horrid resizer. I don't know about IE8, but the older versions would downsize by simply dropping rows of pixels rather than re-interpreting the pixels.

I've been using Firefox and Chrome, and the images look horrible in all browsers. I'm fairly sure my image is modified by the Church at upload time, despite the fact that I seem to adhere to all the minimum (and maximum) requirements listed.

Still, the Church needs to rethink their resize ratio for thumbnails. Best ratios are derivatives of 1/2. And when I give you a 300 x 300 image (so that the thumbnail should look right), don't resize me back up to 375 x 375!

The upload tool does any needed resizing. In my work with directory (on the dev team) I've rarely seen it do a bad job of resizing.

In my testing, I've simply taken whatever image I have and uploaded, never doing any resizing before hand. I have noticed that if the source image is smaller than the resize limits, it doesn't look too good when it gets enlarged.

My recommendation is just take your original image, crop it to frame the subject, and upload it. Don't worry about resizing before hand.

If you still have bad results, I'd be interested in obtaining your source images so I can use them for testing.

jdcr256 wrote:I have noticed that if the source image is smaller than the resize limits, it doesn't look too good when it gets enlarged.

This is one of the points I'm trying to make though, it's common knowledge that enlarging photos doesn't work well. I'm unsure why you can't accept an image within the limits as is? My last test involved uploading the exact file dimensions that you display on the site, and the quality still was compromised with no resize actually having taken place.

I will preform some more tests on larger non-resized images (only cropped to be square) to see if your resize algorithms perform better when they have more pixels to work with in the source image.

Thanks for your response.

mkmurray wrote:LOL, Directory I mean.

That's what I thought. But I went back an looked again - I can't see where I can upload the photos. The closest I can get is a "coming soon" link that does not work.

jdcr256 wrote:The upload tool does any needed resizing. In my work with directory (on the dev team) I've rarely seen it do a bad job of resizing.
...
My recommendation is just take your original image, crop it to frame the subject, and upload it. Don't worry about resizing before hand.

I uploaded a 858 KB jpeg (3328x2220). The preview window on the main directory shows a 6.6 KB (200x133) picture. Since it's a family picture, at that resolution the quality of that preview is pretty bad, but you still get the idea. After clicking on the picture, I get an enlargement of 28.44 KB (500x333). The compression still means it's not great, but by no means terrible.

RussellHltn wrote:That's what I thought. But I went back an looked again - I can't see where I can upload the photos. The closest I can get is a "coming soon" link that does not work.

It's under the administrator tools. I see the "coming soon" link when I click on the "Member Photos" section, but you can actually upload the photos from the administrator tools.