Getting the most quality for sharing images on the web?

[dogbunny]

I'm not sure where this topic best fit, so please feel free to move if it is better placed elsewhere.

I have been developing and scanning my own images for a while now, but I have been really disappointed with how they show up on the internet. At first I was using picasa, but I was getting a lot of pixelation no matter what file size, image size, or resolution I tried. I tried with Flickr and photobucket as well, but I am still disappointed with the results.

I've come to the conclusion that it must be something on my end because plenty of people here and on flickr are getting decent sizes with decent quality. I have tried larger and smaller file/image sizes. I have messed around with the dpi, but I am still pretty disappointed. I like pics to be displayed a little large, like 800x600, but not so large that it screws up the way the thread or website is viewed.

I guess I am looking for the best balance between image size with retaining quality. Does anyone have this figured out?

Thanks,

DB

 

[gavinlg]

Why do you care about the size (quality) of the image? Just keep them full quality and downsize to 800x600. Make sure when you downsize you're keeping the scale of the original photo. So most DSLRs will be 3:2 - which is actually more like 800x533ish. In lightroom or photoshop you can scale by 'longest edge' which you put '800px' and it scales the short edge for you.

Otherwise post an example and we can try spot what's going wrong...

 

[Frank Petronio]

Many sites employ their own schemes for sharpening, contrast, and saturation when you upload... Facebook, Flickr, Model Mayhem, etc. Some people will try to compensate for this but it never seemed to make that much of a difference, a good picture will still stand up even unaided.

 

[tlitody]

I'm not sure where this topic best fit, so please feel free to move if it is better placed elsewhere.

I have been developing and scanning my own images for a while now, but I have been really disappointed with how they show up on the internet. At first I was using picasa, but I was getting a lot of pixelation no matter what file size, image size, or resolution I tried. I tried with Flickr and photobucket as well, but I am still disappointed with the results.

I've come to the conclusion that it must be something on my end because plenty of people here and on flickr are getting decent sizes with decent quality. I have tried larger and smaller file/image sizes. I have messed around with the dpi, but I am still pretty disappointed. I like pics to be displayed a little large, like 800x600, but not so large that it screws up the way the thread or website is viewed.

I guess I am looking for the best balance between image size with retaining quality. Does anyone have this figured out?

Thanks,

DB

Using the attachment option in a post uses a limit of 600x600 pixels. If you upload an image which has bigger dimensions than that on any side, VBulletin will resize the image to fit 600x600.
The default software in PHP for resizing images is GD2 which is notorius for poor image resizing. It makes images very soft and any sharpening which it does using filters is crap. Imagemagick can be used instead which is far superior but you got to know how to use it and that is down to RFF webmasters as you don't have any control over it. And it must be installed on RFF server.
So size your upload images to 600 pixels max on the longer side and they won't get resized and will show it as you prepared it.
There is also a KB size limit so keep it within that too.

In the gallery the size limits are different. The KB size limit is 200KB I think. I'm not sure about image dimensions but I don't think it gets resized if its within the 200KB limit.

So if you really want 800x600 size images, upload to the gallery and not via attachments and then hotlink to the image in the gallery. In gallery click thumbnail to load full size image and then copy the url for it to place an image in your post.

p.s. to moderators: the attachment option settings of 600x600 would be nice to have 800x600 max limits as nearly everyone has minimum 1024 wide screens these days and sidebar is switched off too. No need to increase the KB limit as 196KB is plenty IMO.

 

[dogbunny]

Thanks for the responses.

It sounds like what tlitody mentioned is the problem. I tried a few set at 600x600 and the pixelation seems to have cleared up. I'm trying to decide if I should just use flickr, and use the attachment method. I had some unpleasant experiences with flickr in the past, maybe I'll give them a second chance.

 

[rogerzilla]

Put them on here or make your own website, then you'll know there is no resizing or extra compression being added by the host. Also remember that JPEG compression is a sliding scale and you can choose the level of compression (e.g. to get under the 200KB limit here) while maintaining the highest possible quality. Portraits with a blurred background compress far more effectively than leafy landscapes.