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gbod

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Hey all- I need some recommendations on what you guys are using to "compress" your photos before uploading them to GC.com. I currently use a Kodak 3 Megapixel digital camera- and at home they look great. I've been using an old shareware program called Lview to resize them, and the results are less than spectacular to say the least. Rich in NEPA- your photos look pretty good- what are your methods?

 

Also- is it best to increase compression of a large dimension file- or just resize it to smaller dimensions?

 

Finally- is it best to take "high quality" (more pixels) photos on your digital camera and resize and/or compress them, or is it better to just take "good quality" (less pixels) photos to begin with minimize editing/compression.

 

I'm kind of new to the digital photo editing world, so I'm sure my vocabulary in the above questions may not be correct.

 

(I posted this in Benchmarks- since Benchmarkers take more photos than the general Geocacher)

 

Thanks!

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Howdy, gbod! Very interesting questions, and thanks for the compliment. There aren't any special secrets to my methods. It's something anyone can do. Nearly all of my geocaching and benchmarking photos are taken with a fairly old 2.1 megapixel camera (Olympus C2020z). I always use the highest quality settings including the lowest ISO, the largest image dimensions (resolution), and the lowest file compression (image quality) that my camera allows. Starting with the best possible image makes the rest go easier. My image editing software of choice is Paint Shop Pro v8, and I have a pretty well-established routine after downloading the photos from my camera. First thing I perform is a thorough visual edit, deleting anything that's improperly exposed, blurred, or poorly composed. If the information isn't in the image to begin with there's no sense trying to salvage bad shots. Once I've culled out all the undesirable frames, I then go through and select the ones I want to use for my logs. I open each image in Paint Shop Pro and decide what sort of tweaking it might need. Sometimes the color balance is a little off, or the exposures a little too flat or too contrasty, so these elements are what I correct or adjust first. Always make small adjustments, and compare them to the original image using the editing tool's preview button if it has one, then add a little more if necessary. Then I crop or rotate the image to improve the composition if needed. After I'm satisfied with the adjustments and corrections, I sometimes save the edited image as a TIFF file for possible future enhancement, but usually for run-of-the-mill caching photos I just save it as a JEPG with a slightly different name and with the minimum amount of compression. So what I have now is the original untouched file, and a high-res copy of the edited one. Next I resize the image to 640x480 (480x640 for portrait orientation) using PSP's "Smart Size" resampling option. Almost all digital images need a little sharpening, especially after resizing, so I typically apply only enough Unsharp Mask so that I see a slight increase in sharpness and/or contrast. This is another adjustment that you do not want to overdo. Finally, I save the smaller image in JPEG format using Progressive encoding (it creates a smaller file than Standard encoding) and select a compression level that just allows me to squeak by the GC.com upload limit of 125KB. (For benchmark photos I go as high as 140KB since the upload method is different and not as good on the BM site. Eventually I'm hoping they'll make image handling like it is on the geocaching site.) That's basically it. If there's anything else I can help with, feel free to get in touch.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

--- You might own the cache, but geocaching.com owns you. ---

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I use Adobe Photoshop 7. I take all pictures at 1024 X 768. At home I crop first and then reduce the size to 800 X 600 if needed after the cropping. I then 'save as' .jpg and use a high enough compression to get the size down to about 100k. I am aware that small file sizes are not that important any more, I still use a slow dial-up connection and don't want to wait forever to upload.

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I use Corel PhotoPaint 10. It is very simular to Adobe Photoshop just a lot less expensive. I have used Corel products for years. My new Digital camera is a Canon Digital Rebel 6.1 Mp.

I take multiple shots at different angles so I am sure to get at least one in focus and good brightness to start with.

 

The larger the image you start with, the better your options are when resizing / cropping the photo.

 

I'm the good kind of pirate... if there is such a thing

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If you want something just to resize a photo and are on a tight budget, download Irfanview from the internet. It is pretty neat. It will do what you want it to do and a lot more. You can make slideshows with it and everything. One of the best pieces of free software around and btw there are no pop windows asking you to upgrade, buy, or anything.

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Thanks for the tips.

 

My main reason for resizing the photos is because I'm on a slow dial up connection. I have had problems with the image upload server timing out if the image is any bigger than about 400kb. My concern was one that has been raised earlier on the forums about GC.com resizing the photos again, and degrading image quality. I'll look into the programs you have all suggested. I'm sure any of them are better than what I'm using!

 

Another question: Recently it was worked out here that images would be left alone if less than 600 pixels wide or 125kb. What if your image is less than 600 pixels wide and greater than 125kb? Or less than 125kb but greater than 600 pixels?

 

Thanks!

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quote:
Originally posted by gbod:

What if your image is less than 600 pixels wide and greater than 125kb? Or less than 125kb but greater than 600 pixels?


In either of these cases the dimensions of your image will remain intact. See this thread.

 

However, you should note that even the unresized images are still somehow being resampled and compressed to JPEG standard encoding as they are saved on the server when uploading them. On the positive side, they do not seem to suffer anywhere near the same degree of degradation that occurs when the images need to be resized on the server as well. I can live with this, and I hope that the same relaxed restrictions (600 pixels wide or less, or 125KB or less) will soon be provided on the benchmarking site.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

--- You might own the cache, but geocaching.com owns you. ---

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

I can live with this, and I hope that the same relaxed restrictions (600 pixels wide or less, or 125KB or less) will soon be provided on the benchmarking site.


 

I guess I should have stated from the beginning that the photos I'm uploading are all benchmark photos. I didn't know there was a difference between the two. (I've never uploaded a photo to a geocache).

 

Would you be so kind to explain the difference?

 

Thanks!

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quote:
Originally posted by gbod:

I didn't know there was a difference between the two. (I've never uploaded a photo to a geocache).

 

Would you be so kind to explain the difference?


Gbod, I have a feeling it would be better to have Jeremy explain this part of the process since I have no idea what software he's using on his servers to handle uploaded images and for storing them, or what settings he's using or how the software is configured. I can only observe the effects of this process on the images that I've uploaded so far. Evidently he has a way of telling his servers to check the image filesize and the image pixel dimensions, and subsequently how to resize and recompress them into JPEG files based on these settings.

 

For example, I have a photo that I've resized to 650x490 (my standard dimensions for Web and e-mail) and saved in JPEG "progressive" encoding (meaning the image file will download completely before it is displayed in your browser, as opposed to "standard" encoding which allows the image to display gradually from top to bottom as the file is downloaded—standard encoding results in a slightly larger filesize, but it's more convenient for people to view), and with a filesize of 116,573 bytes. If I upload this photo to the geocaching website, since it is less than the 125KB limit it is not resized dimensionally, but it gets reformatted to standard encoding and its filesize in now 126,154 bytes. When I very carefully compare this image to the one I originally uploaded, they look nearly indistinguishable and with equal image quality. Now, if I upload this photo to the benchmarking site, it is resized and saved to 605x452, again with standard encoding, and is only 41,927 bytes in size. However, there is a dramatic reduction in image quality. Ugh!

 

Believe me, I've tried numerous combinations of formats, compression levels and image dimensions to try to determine the best compromises to this kind of manipulation. As I said earlier, I can live with the newest restrictions on the geocaching site. It also seems that the software doing the manipulation is not the same on the two sites: the geocaching site can only handle GIF, JPG, and TIFF image formats; the benchmarking site can handle a significantly wider range of image formats. Both sites save the resulting images as JPG files with standard encoding. The geocaching site does a much better job, as long as you keep your images below the 125KB size limit so that it is not resized!

 

These are my observations and speculations. Your results may vary so it's best to experiment.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

--- You might own the cache, but geocaching.com owns you. ---

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FWIW, I've been using the following simple method with my Canon PowerShot A70 (3.2 Mp):

 

* Download photos to Mac.

* Open the photo I want in Adobe Photoshop

Elements (the little brother of Photoshop).

* Crop the photo (if needed).

* Resize the photo to 6" wide or high (an arbitrary

number I've settled on for no particular reason ;-)).

* Resize the resolution from 180 to 150. (180 is what

I normally shoot in unless I need a photo to be really

hi-res for some reason. 150 is arbitrary.)

* Save the file under a different name with medium

compression (setting "5" in Elements).

 

You can see some of my resulting photos at http://www.geocaching.com/mark/details.asp?PID=HR0710.

 

Patty

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