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Getting pictures to the right size

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:11 pm
by CuriousGIS-p40
Gimp, www.gimp.org

This is a great program that allows us to resize the pictures to the correct size. We have had success with creating ok looking pictures with 10 people in the frame, however it does tend to get a little hard to distinguish different people. However, if you are using it to recognize the family as a whole it does fine.

I just wish we could upload a picture and have the LDS website do all this for us, ie an interface to crop and resize. All too often a non-computer or barely-computer literate person is called to be a web site admin and they do not feel comfortable resizing pictures and uploading them to the website.

Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:44 am
by russellhltn
CuriousGIS wrote:Gimp, www.gimp.org
A poor man's Photoshop. Good for what it does, and very capable in the right hands, but I think it's way overkill for resizing photos. And it's got a steep learning curve.

I think Picasa from Google may be a more user-friendly pick.

Picture Size Request

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:30 am
by rpyne
It would be very helpful if we could use either 180 x 135 or 135 x 180 pixels The current restriction is not conducive to pictures of individuals. With the large and growing percentage of single members, restricting photos to a horizontal format just simply does not make sense.

Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:47 pm
by zaneclark
rpyne wrote:It would be very helpful if we could use either 180 x 135 or 135 x 180 pixels The current restriction is not conducive to pictures of individuals. With the large and growing percentage of single members, restricting photos to a horizontal format just simply does not make sense.
Since the size limitation makes it difficult to distinguish faces if there are more than 2 individuals, I assume that the photo option is just for identification purposes and not to highlight families, I take my camera to church often and snap members as they leave the building. I sometimes take group photos at an activity and then crop each one out and add them to the directory. I have just recently created a PDF file of the directory and sent it out to members to place on their desktop for fast checking without the necessity of logging on to the web site.

Photos at Tithing Setlement

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:09 pm
by zaneclark
Following a suggestion I found on this forum, I spent all afternoon yesterday lurking in the hall outside the clerk's office at our ward's first day of tithing settlement and was able to get photos of 14 families or individuals to add to the web site. I was also able to give out information on the web site and added some new registrations. In sizing the photos for the web site, using Photoshop Elements, I found that if I reduced the resolution to 50 pixels I was able to get photos of almost 2 x 3 inches and they still looked pretty good...

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 1:37 am
by cordesa
RussellHltn wrote:A poor man's Photoshop. Good for what it does, and very capable in the right hands, but I think it's way overkill for resizing photos. And it's got a steep learning curve.

I think Picasa from Google may be a more user-friendly pick.

One of my professors wrote a simple image resizer. Just Google "pliska image resizer" and you will find it. The download is free from download[dot]com. Works only in windows - can resize a single photo or a batch.

Ward picture directory - useless size limit

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:44 pm
by atom88-p40
There is a Ward Picture directory option available on the ward/stake website. You have to be an administrator in order to add pictures. Also be aware of the limit of 135 x 180 pixels in place for each picture.

Why not let EACH MEMBER upload his/her own picture(s)? This used to be there but was taken away, I believe?

I would personally like to see them change this to a filesize based limit or else something larger. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to see a family of 5-10 people's faces at that size. If the church is supposed to be about FAMILY, why are the pictures not FAMILY-FRIENDLY sizeable?

Also, I would suggest cropping down the picture and/or resizing it only the person's face due to the above limitation, otherwise the picture directory is almost useless as faces are indistinguishable.

To say that "the church" doesn't store pictures of it's members is technically misleading and probably NOT true? Obviously they are stored on some "church owned/ run / operated" server somewhere if they are on lds.org, even if it's only accessable within a stake?

I think it should be restated as something like "the church doesn't preserve pictures of it's members when they move outside the ward/stake" (for some unknown reason?)

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:16 pm
by jdlessley
atom88 wrote:There is a Ward Picture directory option available on the ward/stake website. You have to be an administrator in order to add pictures. Also be aware of the limit of 135 x 180 pixels in place for each picture.

Why not let EACH MEMBER upload his/her own picture(s)? This used to be there but was taken away, I believe?
Adding a picture has always been under the control of a web administrator. I suppose this is to ensure control of what would end up on the web site.
atom88 wrote:I would personally like to see them change this to a filesize based limit or else something larger. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to see a family of 5-10 people's faces at that size. If the church is supposed to be about FAMILY, why are the pictures not FAMILY-FRIENDLY sizeable?
The size of the picture and the related issues of resolution have been discussed and recommendations made in the Next Revision Unit Web Sites Wish List.

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:25 pm
by chriswoodut-p40
jdlessley wrote:Adding a picture has always been under the control of a web administrator. I suppose this is to ensure control of what would end up on the web site.

The size of the picture and the related issues of resolution have been discussed and recommendations made in the Next Revision Unit Web Sites Wish List.
If people could upload their own pictures, then the pictures would stay current. If there is a concern of what would be uploaded, then there should be a submission/approval process like there is for calendar items.

Our ward has gone to just using pictures of the parents because the kids grow up too fast and the pictures aren't as useful.

Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:38 pm
by mkmurray
chriswoodut wrote:If people could upload their own pictures, then the pictures would stay current. If there is a concern of what would be uploaded, then there should be a submission/approval process like there is for calendar items.
This is already a proposed feature in the Local Unit Web Sites 2.0 rewrite. More information can be found on its wiki page: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Ward_%26_Stake_Directory_Application