Feature change request: increase size limits for images

[+Arrow42]

<1 mp is just silly. Even on Waymarking I can upload 5+mp images without much issue. It realy is too bad that we must sacrifice so much quality when uploading an image.

 

5MB would be my preference, but 2MB would make me a happy camper.

 

Oh, can we also get some kind of accurate limits listed on the upload page? They seem to be weirdly inaccurate.

[+BruceS]

<1 mp is just silly. Even on Waymarking I can upload 5+mp images without much issue. It realy is too bad that we must sacrifice so much quality when uploading an image.

 

5MB would be my preference, but 2MB would make me a happy camper.

 

Oh, can we also get some kind of accurate limits listed on the upload page? They seem to be weirdly inaccurate.

 

Waymarking image sizes are limited to 4 mb and your chance of uploading one that large and not timing out is not likely.

[+Allanon]

Why?

[+Arrow42]

Waymarking image sizes are limited to 4 mb and your chance of uploading one that large and not timing out is not likely.

 

Thank you for letting me know the exact limit - it escaped my mind. I do remember uploading images that were around 5MP after I cut them down.

 

Why

 

When you decrease the resolution or compress the image you lose lots of detail and generally make the quality of lesser quality. I have an nice camera and I'm getting better at using it... I would really like to be able to share that.

 

Edited October 5, 2009 by Arrow42

[+fizzymagic]

Why?

Why want things better? I dunno. You still driving that horse-drawn cart around?

 

125K, the current limit, seems pretty small to me considering the enormous descrease in storage costs over the last couple of years. I can usually get reasonably good quality at 800x600, but I would like to be able to have higher quality images, as well.

 

On the other hand, since the images on this site are not likely to ever be printed, but are intended for viewing on a computer monitor, anything bigger than 1024 pixels across is probably not useful.

[+Arrow42]

Why?

Why want things better? I dunno. You still driving that horse-drawn cart around?

 

125K, the current limit, seems pretty small to me considering the enormous descrease in storage costs over the last couple of years. I can usually get reasonably good quality at 800x600, but I would like to be able to have higher quality images, as well.

 

On the other hand, since the images on this site are not likely to ever be printed, but are intended for viewing on a computer monitor, anything bigger than 1024 pixels across is probably not useful.

 

Even if it's not printed, it's often nice to be able to zoom in on a feature and get a closer look. 1mp images (1000x1000) don't let you do that, but 5 to 10 mp images do.

[+StarBrand]

For viewing on a PC monitor - It would be near silly to allow photos much over about 2megapixels. I just don't see a need to "zoom" in on the images I view on this site. The current limits are too small but allowing 4 or 5 Megapixels doesn't make much sense either. Always keep in mind that despite some having multi megabit connection speeds - some of our brethern have slower connections - some are even on dial up modems yet. Viewing a large photo would be painful at best.

[Skippermark]

Even if it's not printed, it's often nice to be able to zoom in on a feature and get a closer look. 1mp images (1000x1000) don't let you do that, but 5 to 10 mp images do.

PLEASE do not allow 10MP pictures to be uploaded to the site...or at least left that size after uploading.

 

I frequently access the site through my cell phone and don't want to have to wait 15 minutes for a picture to download.

[+Arrow42]

Even if it's not printed, it's often nice to be able to zoom in on a feature and get a closer look. 1mp images (1000x1000) don't let you do that, but 5 to 10 mp images do.

PLEASE do not allow 10MP pictures to be uploaded to the site...or at least left that size after uploading.

 

I frequently access the site through my cell phone and don't want to have to wait 15 minutes for a picture to download.

 

A high-quality 10MP image with 0 compression (direct from my camera) runs about 4MB in size. After post-processing and light compression the image is usually about 2MB. If your using a Blackberry or iPhone that isn't an unreasonable size, even if the extra detail is wasted on that screen.

 

I'm not unsympathetic with slow internet connections (whether it's dialup or cellphones) but I don't think the right option is to dumb down the entire site to fit the worst connections out there. A better option, in my opinion, would be for the site to include a link for two different sizes: "Low/Hi" or something similar. Many websites already do this and the tools to accomplish this are built in to almost every installation of Apache/PHP on the planet. In fact, two options are given when setting up the server... Incidentally, geocaching.com already utilizes the poorer version of the two... but there are reasons why they have chosen not use the better.

[+Arrow42]

For viewing on a PC monitor - It would be near silly to allow photos much over about 2megapixels. I just don't see a need to "zoom" in on the images I view on this site....

 

Detail can be interesting.

 

 

Also, if I want to use someone's image as a background I need to be able to crop it down to 1280x2048 to fit my duel screens (at work).

 

In any case, as long as something like I suggested in my last post you can simply not click on them if you don't want to see them.

[+Chrysalides]

Personally I think having very high resolution files is of limited value and creates more headaches for Groundspeak and some users than it is worth. Most people can't be bothered to resize before uploading, so w're going to end up with lots of high resolution cell phone photos with very little detail.

 

Still, I agree that a higher resolution would be good. 1024 pixels across makes sense.

 

For Arrow42, I find it worthwhile to pay for photo hosting on a different site. You can always link to the photo there from your log. I'm not going to pimp for any of the services available, especially since the service I use has a referrer bonus and I don't want any accusations of conflict of interest. Besides, I can't give a good comparative analysis since I'm happy with what I have and have not been looking at the competition.

 

And as for details, I agree they can be interesting. However, uploading a 10MP image so that viewers can zoom into a 300x300 detail seems like overkill. Much better for you to crop out that area and post a different image, since most viewers will not know the detail exists in the first place, as very few would be viewing a high MP image at 100%.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Chrysalides

[+Arrow42]

Personally I think having very high resolution files is of limited value and creates more headaches for Groundspeak and some users than it is worth. Most people can't be bothered to resize before uploading, so w're going to end up with lots of high resolution cell phone photos with very little detail.

 

Still, I agree that a higher resolution would be good. 1024 pixels across makes sense.

 

For Arrow42, I find it worthwhile to pay for photo hosting on a different site. You can always link to the photo there from your log. I'm not going to pimp for any of the services available, especially since the service I use has a referrer bonus and I don't want any accusations of conflict of interest. Besides, I can't give a good comparative analysis since I'm happy with what I have and have not been looking at the competition.

 

I can't speak on behalf of Groundspeak so I'm just suggesting what I would like to see. If there is a technical problem with accomplishing what I'm asking for then I trust them to either A.) reject the idea, B.) modify it so it works, C.) resolve the technical limitations. Since we don't have any idea what may or may not be posible then it's useless to try to limit our suggestions based on that. In a (crappy) motivational seminar I attended a few years back they called these self-imposed limitations to our thinking "painted cattle guards".

 

 

Forcing users to leave geocaching.com any use other websites is not a great strategy in my opinion. I have already signed up with an image hosting site so I can upload images for this thread... I had to find one that isn't blocked by the proxy at work.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Arrow42

[+Arrow42]

Detail can be interesting.

 

Here's the full sized version of the image I was trying to make... scaling down my example of scaling down is kinda redundant.

 

The image on the left is scaled down to 600px wide and the image on the right is full size.

Edited October 5, 2009 by Arrow42

[+StarBrand]

For viewing on a PC monitor - It would be near silly to allow photos much over about 2megapixels. I just don't see a need to "zoom" in on the images I view on this site....

 

Detail can be interesting.

 

 

Also, if I want to use someone's image as a background I need to be able to crop it down to 1280x2048 to fit my duel screens (at work).

 

In any case, as long as something like I suggested in my last post you can simply not click on them if you don't want to see them.

Again - what would compel me to want to zoom into that original image?? Ok I grant maybe once in a great while but generally speaking - that would be very very rare. Viewed at its full size - it would take a monitor lots bigger than the average user owns to view the whole thing.

[LQ]

The real restrictions on the image sizes are actually something different, than the officially listed ones.

Here's an example what you can get already.

 

Maybe the downsizing algorithm on the server end could be tweaked to do a better job?

Edited October 5, 2009 by lq

[+Arrow42]

Again - what would compel me to want to zoom into that original image?? Ok I grant maybe once in a great while but generally speaking - that would be very very rare. Viewed at its full size - it would take a monitor lots bigger than the average user owns to view the whole thing.

 

I can't answer what might compel you, I can only comment on what would compel me - as I have already done.

 

I just used that blow-up as an example since it had some interesting detail and was sharper then other parts of the image.

 

The real restrictions on the image sizes are actually something different, than the officially listed ones.

Here's an example what you can get already.

I know... the guidance on the upload page is full of lies. I think the image processor they are using is GD instead of imagemagick... but I could be wrong on that.

[+Arrow42]

I'm shamelessly bumping this thread to bring the idea back into the global consciousness.

 

Shame, I have none.

[+spotter/g]

How are you able to get your pics so big? My only thought would be changing the DPI.

[+Arrow42]

How are you able to get your pics so big? My only thought would be changing the DPI.

 

If you mean big, in terms of the number of pixles then... It's high(er) compression. However, the downside is loss of detail, compression artifacts and poorer overall technical quality. It's not alwase noticable however, but some factors (such as large red areas) can make an image less forgiving.

[+keehotee]

 

A high-quality 10MP image with 0 compression (direct from my camera) runs about 4MB in size. After post-processing and light compression the image is usually about 2MB. If your using a Blackberry or iPhone that isn't an unreasonable size, even if the extra detail is wasted on that screen.

 

 

Actually an uncompressed (ie RAW) image from a 10MP camera will come in at (ANAD) 10MB.

I suspect your image is jpeg - which is incredibly compressed and processed!!!

 

If people want to post larger images I'd suggest that thumbnail links to off-site photo sites (Flickr, Photobucket, etc) would be a far better option, and would allow people to choose whether to download the larger images to view.

Edited November 1, 2009 by keehotee

[Pajaholic]

Bigger pictures might be OK for the "all you can eat" US culture but please have a thought for those of use who pay for our bandwidth by the megabyte. For example, in UK the "out of bundle" costs can be horrific and the price per megabyte varies AFAICT from 0.10 GBP (Three) to 1.96 GPB (Orange's most expensive) per megabyte. At today's mid-market exchange rate that's a cost of between 66 cents and 13 dollars US to download a 4MB image - and internet bandwidth on some phones is even more expensive.

 

A much better idea IMO is for those of you who have nice cameras and want to share your photos in all their glory is to upload a resized image within current limits and provide a link to the full-size image hosted on flikr, photobucket, etc. For the same reason, it's a good idea IMO to post small images in the forums and link them to the full-size version. For example:

(Click piccy for 864x1152 version)

You can do this within the existing limits, so you already have a way to share your photos without "forcing" those who'd rather not to download the full-size version.

 

HTH,

 

Geoff

[+tomtwogates]

I agree with Pajaholic - we also have heavy bandwidth costs - this is after all a caching site and not a photographic competition. Link your pictures if need be to a pure photo site.

[+Arrow42]

Actually an uncompressed (ie RAW) image from a 10MP camera will come in at (ANAD) 10MB.

I suspect your image is jpeg - which is incredibly compressed and processed!!!

 

If people want to post larger images I'd suggest that thumbnail links to off-site photo sites (Flickr, Photobucket, etc) would be a far better option, and would allow people to choose whether to download the larger images to view.

 

Yes, by "0 compression" I mean "0% lossy compression". Since this website doens't support NEF files I didn't think the distinction was relevant.

 

but please have a thought for those of use who pay for our bandwidth by the megabyte.

 

I agree with Pajaholic - we also have heavy bandwidth costs...

 

This point is only relevant if your are somehow compelled at gunpoint to click on every image you see. I've addressed this problem several times already: Thumbnails are common practice and extrodinarly easy to implement.

 

A much better idea IMO is for those of you who have nice cameras and want to share your photos in all their glory is to upload a resized image within current limits and provide a link to the full-size image hosted on flikr, photobucket, etc.

 

Again, forcing people to go off-site and upload the images is a bad business model and is much less user friendly and introduces a minor (but real) security problem from phishing attempts.

 

I don't understand at all why there is so much resistance to better quality images on geocaching.com. There is not a single down-side that can't be easily bypassed with techniques used all over the internet.

[Pajaholic]

The only issue with "better quality images" (i.e. larger filesizes) for me is that embedding them full-size in a page means that you automatically download them if you access that page - and you have no say in the matter unless you click the "stop" button or close the page. I wouldn't have an issue if the site automatically showed only thumbnails unless you explicitly chose to download the full-size version and made it clear just how big the full-size version is.

 

BTW, please excuse my ignorance - but how is phishing possible if all you're opening is an image on an external site? AFAICT you don't have to give your name, address, and bank details to open an external JPG etc; or rather, if you did it would be the cause of immediate alarm bells!

 

Geoff

[+Arrow42]

The only issue with "better quality images" (i.e. larger filesizes) for me is that embedding them full-size in a page means that you automatically download them if you access that page - and you have no say in the matter unless you click the "stop" button or close the page. I wouldn't have an issue if the site automatically showed only thumbnails unless you explicitly chose to download the full-size version and made it clear just how big the full-size version is.

 

The site already only shows a scaled-down thumbnail and then ONLY shows the large image if you click on them. Nothing would need to change to make that work. However, adding a set of links like "View Small (50KB) Medium (250KB) or Large (1.4 MB)" is something many sites already do and would be a great feature.

 

BTW, please excuse my ignorance - but how is phishing possible if all you're opening is an image on an external site? AFAICT you don't have to give your name, address, and bank details to open an external JPG etc; or rather, if you did it would be the cause of immediate alarm bells!

 

Geoff

 

If adding links off-site is common practice (it's not right now) then it would be easy for a spammer to add links to "imagehack.us" or other closely spelled websites with that contain malicious code. Preventing that isn't what this idea is about, but it is a down side of encouraging people to go off-site.

 

ICANN is making more language character sets available and a side effect is that we are going to see lots more fake websites out there and they are going to be WAY harder to detect.

Edited November 1, 2009 by Arrow42

[+Arrow42]

Incase you want information on ICANN's proposed policy change:

 

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/arti..._cant_type.html

 

In theory you could have several identical-looking domains for every single legitimate domain on the planet. Maybe the phishing filters in firefox/google/AVG/IE will be enough to catch them...

[+paleolith]

I post a lot of photos -- see for example my DNF log on PCH (which admittedly is perhaps my record). And I'm afraid I also don't see the need for big changes.

 

I can generally show what I want to show ON THE WEB within the gc.com limitations. (I do wish they would state the limits much more clearly. I THINK I know what I'm dealing with, but despite having adapted many photos to those limits, it's still not crystal clear to me.)

 

The combined keys are

 

1) You can make the pixel dimensions as large as you want as long as the file is under 125KB.

 

2) You can make the file as large as you want as long as the dimensions are under 600x600.

 

3) gc.com is all about viewing on the web, but allows you to link elsewhere.

 

4) If you edit your photo to within the limits, gc.com does not touch it but serves it up as-is.

 

Can I always display the best quality photo within these limits? No, of course not. Can I always display it well enough for good-experience viewing on gc.com? I have not yet found an exception.

 

Here are a couple of my logs with large images. One image is 2048x338 and a 37KB file, the other is 2048x485 and is a 60KB file:

 

my found log for Sandstone Peak

 

my found log for Tri Peak Cache

 

I think the quality of these is highly satisfactory for web viewing. And yet they are actually too large in pixels -- almost no one (including me) has a monitor wide enough to display them without horizontal scrolling. I should have made them smaller.

 

These of course are low-complexity images, which is why the high compression works OK. Certainly I have had photos which ideally I would have presented at 800x800, but the complexity was high and I was not able to compress them to 125KB without losing too much. With those, I cropped and reduced to under 600x600. I'm pretty sure the "red shank in bloom" photo on this log is such a case.

 

If I really want to present more, I use JAlbum to create the album and host it on my own web site. (My host charges $6/month, but there are now a number of free web hosting sites which do not modify your web pages in any way, in particular to not add advertising, and which give adequate performance. I have used one of these for a neighborhood web site.) This way I'm completely certain that my images have not been modified, and present them as I wish. which AFAIK I cannot be certain of with Flickr or Imageshack. My albums (these shooting stars for example) also often allow downloading the full resolution photo (though even that is usually cropped and adjusted).

 

Phishing? Possible now, since gc.com allows us to post links. Perhaps posting links in logs should be limited to premium members, so that gc.com has an ID in the form of credit card info for anyone posting bad links. But come on, how many people actually read any given gc.com log? Phishers want pages with millions of impressions, not hundreds.

 

I also think that such additional photo capabilities would complicate the UI to the point of discouraging some less technical users from uploading photos, to the detriment of all. For example, suppose someone uploads a 2048x3076 photo. Now you have to ask them what to do with it: what size to display it, do you want the original made available, etc. OK, you don't HAVE TO ask them -- you could just make a downsized image for regular display and automatically link to the larger -- but then how do you cater to someone who WANTS to specify the normal display size? Etc.

 

In short, if you think this should be done, show us the details of your proposed UI for doing so. I think it's going to be very hard to design the UI to allow two-level photos without adding complexity for users who don't want that sophistication.

 

Edward

[+Viajero Perdido]

Even though the size limit is supposed to be 125k (that's what it says), I've found it to actually be 200k.

 

Files above 200k will be shrunk automatically by Groundspeak's servers.

 

Unless they're uploaded to the cache page itself, instead of a log. Those aren't resized at all, as far as I can tell.

[+Arrow42]

Here are a couple of my logs with large images. One image is 2048x338 and a 37KB file, the other is 2048x485 and is a 60KB file:

 

my found log for Sandstone Peak

 

my found log for Tri Peak Cache

 

I think the quality of these is highly satisfactory for web viewing. And yet they are actually too large in pixels -- almost no one (including me) has a monitor wide enough to display them without horizontal scrolling. I should have made them smaller.

 

I would like to say that - those are very well composed photos and I think you did a great job. That said, the compressing artifacts and loss of detail in those are HORRID. Those are a great example of why being able to upload a larger image would be nice!

 

In short, if you think this should be done, show us the details of your proposed UI for doing so. I think it's going to be very hard to design the UI to allow two-level photos without adding complexity for users who don't want that sophistication.

 

Edward

 

 

It's easy. The uploader's interface wouldn't be changed at all.

 

On the server's side it would generate three "thumbnails" of the image...lets call them A, B and C. You could do more, but three is a good number I think.

 

A would be the tiny thumbnail used when your looking at the gallery. Respecting the orgional's aspect ratio, it would resize the image to fit within a 100x100 pixle box. For most pictures this would end up with a thumbnail close to 100x75 pixels. (Note: this is already done)

 

If you click on A, you get B.B would be small, but larger then A and used for when someone clicks on the image in the gallery. B would be resized to fit into a 300x300 box, again, respecting the original aspect ratio. (Note: this is already done)

 

On the page that shows B (see image above) you could link to C and the original. C would be a version of the image re-sized to fit with in a 1000 pixel box, respecting original aspect ratio. (Note: this is already done, kinda). The only change at all is that the original is stored and available. You could skip image "C" and the interface wouldn't need to be changed at all. Your precious bandwidth is already being conserved and you only ever load the larger image if you click on the picture. Thats how it is already. .

Edited November 2, 2009 by Arrow42

[+keehotee]

Yes, by "0 compression" I mean "0% lossy compression". Since this website doens't support NEF files I didn't think the distinction was relevant.

 

When did jpeg become lossless?

And NEF is only relevant if you shoot with a Nikon camera AFAIK. A better comparison would have been TIFF.

[+Chrysalides]

When did jpeg become lossless?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_JPEG

 

However, let's not quibble about what's lossless, and what's compression. It's hardly the main point of this post.

 

I've thought about this feature request a bit more, and my thoughts now are:

 

1. Do not show the full resolution by default, as per current implementation. No change required there. (Arrow42 pointed this out a few times)

 

2. Show image size (resolution and file size) in thumbnail.

 

3. Allow user to choose how much to downsample photos when uploading (perhaps even default it to current limitations)

 

I still maintain that if the desire is to show details, it is far better to upload a crop of the original image in addition.

 

And I think increasing the size limit by any amount is better than not increasing the size limit. It's up to Groundspeak to decide if it makes sense, and how much they should increase it by if it does.

[+NinjaCacher!]

Remember this is a Geocaching site, not a picture sharing site

 

I think the current way of being able to include pictures in logs etc. is by far enough for the purpose of Geocaching. There is no enhancement in Geocaching with better quality pictures stored on this site. If you want to share a picture, do it on a site that is made for doing so (flickr, picasa, photobucket etc.) and post the link in your log/forum post etc. That's then about sharing a picture, and has not much to do with geocaching. This also applies for your picture of a lake with zoomed in detail... it's nice, but what has the detail to do with geocaching? If you want to share your nice picture, do it on a picture sharing site, and put a link in your log.

 

Linky thingy is what makes the web!

 

However what I would support is more "web 2.0" (i hate that term) enhancement of the geocaching site.. for example to link/include pictures from picture sharing sites. But even there I don't see it as necessary for caching, more a "nice to have" thing. I'd prefer to have the number of caches in a pocket query or the number of available pocket queries increased, than the quality of pictures!

[+Arrow42]

Edit: Post removed. Nevermind. I don't know how to respond without expressing my shock at your post.

Edited November 3, 2009 by Arrow42