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100kb limitation for uploading geocache pictures


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Jeremy, any chance to get the 100kb limitation raised to about 120kb? I have taken some nice photos at some of the cache sites and when I reduce them enough to meet the 100kb limitation, I end up with a photo not worth posting. In that case, I just don't post them. They may be waterfalls, mountain ranges, planes and birds flying below us, scenes I think other people would enjoy looking at. The effect is lost with the 100kb file. I have tried different programs for reducing the file size, various compressions, and other methods to shrink the file but the bottom line is a 120-140kb limitation would help a lot! How about it

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

I have tried different programs for reducing the file size, various compressions, and other methods to shrink the file but the bottom line is a 120-140kb limitation would help a lot!


If you haven't already, check the thread For those who post photographs... where I asked for tips on achieving balance between photo size and quality.

 

Alot of responses there with good tips...

 

-exConn

 

What is Project Virginia?

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

Jeremy, any chance to get the 100kb limitation raised to about 120kb?


 

I hope not. Any (repeat ANY) pic can be posted in adequate quality for well under 100k. The last pic I posted relating to a cache was this one and it was 9k. I'm really not trying to brag or anything, but 100k is a HUGE picture. Make sure you set your image editing software to save at no more than 72dpi and you will never have a pic over 100k. 72dpi is the maximum (yes, maximum) resolution that can be displayed on a standard monitor, any resolution greater than that is only useful if you need to print out a picture.

 

I hope that is helpful.

 

=-=-=-=-=-=

Opus P

Crathvaf Ehyr

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Visit my Buddhist Reading Room.

 

[This message was edited by Opus P on March 14, 2002 at 09:45 PM.]

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America Online lets you create a homepage, and also store about 4 megabytes of files on your FTP site, which is associated with the webpage you create. Whats more, is that if you had 3 screen names under one account, that would be 12 megabytes. Several ISPs allow all this, but I dont know how much they may let you store online.

 

5_Rubik.gif

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I found that pictures set to 72 dpi look like crap (very pixelated) when viewed next to log entries. At 96 dpi, the problem goes away. I suspect it has something to do with they way the website down samples images to get them to fit next to the text. Also, if you make the width of the image a multiple of 300 pixels (the width of the preview image), it seems to improve the picture quality. Less pixel interpolation, I guess.

 

Of course none of this applies, if we're talking about viewing the original picture by itself.

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quote:
Originally posted by The Boonie Man:

I found that pictures set to 72 dpi look like crap (very pixelated) when viewed next to log entries. At 96 dpi, the problem goes away.


The file size should barely change between 72 and 96 dpi, both should be very small files.

 

quote:
Of course none of this applies, if we're talking about viewing the original picture by itself.
Until just now I didn't know we weren't. I was not aware of the type of picture "next to a log entry" that you're talking about. So I posted a picture at this cache to see what you mean. The problem is that they stretch the image to be so huge. I would think Jeremy would want to fix that to help keep file size down. The image by itself is big enough to look good on the page without any enlargement, and the file is a tiny 9k.

 

Jeremy? Can that be fixed?

 

=-=-=-=-=-=

Opus P

Crathvaf Ehyr

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Visit my Buddhist Reading Room.

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I would have to agree that pictures should be saved at no less than 72 dpi. I, personally, find that if someone posts a picture that is only 150x200 pixels then it is hardly worth looking at because it's just too small and most of the detail is lost. If a file is 9K in size then great, I would hope that it is a closeup shot of something or a photo with a lot of contrast in it, because otherwise 9K just doesn't cut it. So, unless your the size of a powerfluff girl toy then I think you might want to reconsider. ;~)

 

As for the "bug" that you think exists on the tumbnails page, the page resizes the main photo to be 300 pixels horizontal no matter what, it's a fixed value even though the verticle is not defined (and thus is variable depending on the size of the photo). And even then it has nothing to do with the size of the file. a 9K photo and a 100K photo will still take just as long to load so that they can be resized on the fly by the web browser.

 

The solution? Make the photo bigger.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Opus P:

Originally posted by The Boonie Man:

I found that pictures set to 72 dpi look like crap (very pixelated) when viewed next to log entries. At 96 dpi, the problem goes away.

The file size should barely change between 72 and 96 dpi, both should be very small files.

 

Of course none of this applies, if we're talking about viewing the original picture by itself.
Until just now I didn't know we weren't. I was not aware of the type of picture "next to a log entry" that you're talking about. So I posted a picture at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?id=4808 to see what you mean. The problem is that they stretch the image to be so huge. I would think Jeremy would want to fix that to help keep file size down. http://www.buildapage.com/images/buttercup.jpg is big enough to look good on the page without any enlargement, and the file is a tiny 9k.

 

Jeremy? Can that be fixed?

 


 

______________________

Iron Chef

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quote:
Originally posted by Iron Chef:

. . . a 9K photo and a 100K photo will still take just as long to load . . .


Sorry, but that's just not so. A 100k photo takes 11 times longer to load than a 9k photo.

 

Also, I didn't meant to suggest that all photos could be made that small. But 100k is a reasonable limit. And the suggested increase to 120 or 140 would not make a noticible difference in the quality of the pictures uploaded. If a player has a 120k photo to UL then a very small, almost imperceptible, change in resolution or a slight crop, or both, would bring it easily under the limit.

 

And the fact remains that 72dpi is the resolution limit of the monitor. If a picture needs to be 300 pixels wide to display on the page, that's fine, but it has nothing to do with the hardware resolution limits.

 

I must have missed where it says that these pictures were all resized to 300 width, if I had known I would have made my TB picture 300 wide. Now I know that I can work with it. I wish I had seen it printed somewhere before I upoladed the pictures.

 

=-=-=-=-=-=

Opus P

Crathvaf Ehyr

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Visit my Buddhist Reading Room.

 

[This message was edited by Opus P on March 15, 2002 at 05:23 AM.]

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Other than at work, I am haplessly bandwidth challenged. Live in the sticks with no cable, no satellite, no DSL - there is an option for phantom wave, but with my Mac, it's just too doggone expensive!

 

My 56k modem gets at BEST a 31.2k connection. Usually (98%) it's 26.4k.

 

I really like the restraint many have exercised on the forums and especially lately kepts to links of pics or small pics. It really does make a difference.

 

I would love to see beautiful cache pictures, but I also want to have time to see more than one or two before bedtime comes along.

 

Go! And don't be afraid to get a little wet!

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If someone has problems fitting their images under the 100KB file size limit, then increasing it to 120K isn't going to help as much as you might think. They may allow you to upload unedited pictures from your camera, but it won't help others with different cameras or techniques for taking pictures. The additional problem is that the server has to store the additional size of the image files.

 

The real issue is a need for users to get a satisfactory image editing software to effectivly tweek the image to a smaller footprint. Two high-end products are Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint that can be purchased at computer shows for under $200 each, the less recent versions can be gotten for under $80. There are free and low cost image manipulators available on the web if you are on a budget.

 

No picture that I've uploaded is larger then 58KB and I've read that others are getting similar results. So why not cut down the image limit from 100KB to say 75KB ? If an oversize image is necessary, then it can be uploaded from a personal web site. This would cut down the storage space needed by GEOCACHING.COM and if we are really lucky, cut down on the number of squirrel pictures posted. icon_eek.gif

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If someone has problems fitting their images under the 100KB file size limit, then increasing it to 120K isn't going to help as much as you might think. They may allow you to upload unedited pictures from your camera, but it won't help others with different cameras or techniques for taking pictures. The additional problem is that the server has to store the additional size of the image files.

 

The real issue is a need for users to get a satisfactory image editing software to effectivly tweek the image to a smaller footprint. Two high-end products are Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint that can be purchased at computer shows for under $200 each, the less recent versions can be gotten for under $80. There are free and low cost image manipulators available on the web if you are on a budget.

 

No picture that I've uploaded is larger then 58KB and I've read that others are getting similar results. So why not cut down the image limit from 100KB to say 75KB ? If an oversize image is necessary, then it can be uploaded from a personal web site. This would cut down the storage space needed by GEOCACHING.COM and if we are really lucky, cut down on the number of squirrel pictures posted. icon_eek.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by DARC:

If someone has problems fitting their images under the 100KB file size limit, then increasing it to 120K isn't going to help as much as you might think. They may allow you to upload unedited pictures from your camera, but it won't help others with different cameras or techniques for taking pictures. The additional problem is that the server has to store the additional size of the image files.

 

The real issue is a need for users to get a satisfactory image editing software to effectivly tweek the image to a smaller footprint. Two high-end products are Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint that can be purchased at computer shows for under $200 each, the less recent versions can be gotten for under $80. There are free and low cost image manipulators available on the web if you are on a budget.

 

No picture that I've uploaded is larger then 58KB and I've read that others are getting similar results. So why not cut down the image limit from 100KB to say 75KB ? If an oversize image is necessary, then it can be uploaded from a personal web site. This would cut down the storage space needed by GEOCACHING.COM and if we are really lucky, cut down on the number of squirrel pictures posted. icon_eek.gif


I had to laugh when I read the suggestion to buy a $200.00 to enable me to upload a decent picture. Just doing some quick math, if the 8000 geocachers each bought this $200. program, it would total 1.6 million dollars. If we donated that money to Jeremy instead, he could buy more memory space, buy all new computers for his office, and still be a millionaire! Then again, maybe we better not do that because we would have to find a new site moderator.LOL. In brief, it would still be a lot cheaper and easier just to raise the 100k limit a bit. I would challenge anyone to post a photo of a scenic picture to on this site (like a large waterfall, mountain range, or another view which is often seen from a cache site) that I would be able to print out a hang on my wall and have it look nice. No, not a picture of a MCtoy and not a wallet size either. I'll be waiting
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quote:
Originally posted by DARC:

If someone has problems fitting their images under the 100KB file size limit, then increasing it to 120K isn't going to help as much as you might think. They may allow you to upload unedited pictures from your camera, but it won't help others with different cameras or techniques for taking pictures. The additional problem is that the server has to store the additional size of the image files.

 

The real issue is a need for users to get a satisfactory image editing software to effectivly tweek the image to a smaller footprint. Two high-end products are Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photopaint that can be purchased at computer shows for under $200 each, the less recent versions can be gotten for under $80. There are free and low cost image manipulators available on the web if you are on a budget.

 

No picture that I've uploaded is larger then 58KB and I've read that others are getting similar results. So why not cut down the image limit from 100KB to say 75KB ? If an oversize image is necessary, then it can be uploaded from a personal web site. This would cut down the storage space needed by GEOCACHING.COM and if we are really lucky, cut down on the number of squirrel pictures posted. icon_eek.gif


I had to laugh when I read the suggestion to buy a $200.00 to enable me to upload a decent picture. Just doing some quick math, if the 8000 geocachers each bought this $200. program, it would total 1.6 million dollars. If we donated that money to Jeremy instead, he could buy more memory space, buy all new computers for his office, and still be a millionaire! Then again, maybe we better not do that because we would have to find a new site moderator.LOL. In brief, it would still be a lot cheaper and easier just to raise the 100k limit a bit. I would challenge anyone to post a photo of a scenic picture to on this site (like a large waterfall, mountain range, or another view which is often seen from a cache site) that I would be able to print out a hang on my wall and have it look nice. No, not a picture of a MCtoy and not a wallet size either. I'll be waiting
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I use a free program called Coffecup Image Viewer Plus. The whole process is as simple as double clicking the image I want and choosing Save As.. I then save it as a JPG with adjustable compression. It's never given me or my system any problems and it costs nothing. http://www.coffeecup.com . Why do we need to increase the required band width on this site when we can easily solve the problem on our end?

 

geosign.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

 

I would challenge anyone to post a photo of a scenic picture to on this site (like a large waterfall, mountain range, or another view which is often seen from a cache site) that I would be able to print out a hang on my wall and have it look nice. No, not a picture of a MCtoy and not a wallet size either. I'll be waiting


 

First, you are talking about two different things. Viewing an image on a monitor is one thing, printing it is another. The purpose of photos on THIS site is not to print them out to hang on your wall. If I liked one of your images that much I'd email you for the original.

 

But, I'll take your challenge. The image below is less than 100K (about 90K). Nice scene (from a nearby cache). I printed it about 7 X 10. Looks good to me. Personally, I'd sharpen it more, boost the brightness, and lower the contrast, but it works for demonstration purposes.

 

Some additional info -- I've been a portrait photographer for almost 30 years (scenics aren't my thing). If your prints don't look good I might suggest different paper, different inks, or perhaps a different printer. If you have any other questions regarding getting better prints, please feel free to email me. I'd be glad to try and help.

 

geospotter

 

limtest.jpg

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quote:
Originally posted by geospotter:

The image below is less than 100K (about 90K). ... Personally, I'd sharpen it more, boost the brightness, and lower the contrast, but it works for demonstration purposes.


 

Actually, it doesn't work for demonstration purposes. Sharpen it and enhance the contrast, then try saving it at the same compression ratio you used for the first one and you'll see the increase in file size.

 

The trouble is, the JPEG standard in use today is obsolete and not very good for highly detailed or textured subjects. If they ever release the new JPEG-2000 standards, this will improve the situation considerably. With digital photography you simply can't have your cake and eat it, too. Highly detailed images need higher resolution (that's why landscape photographers have always used ultra-fined grain films and large formats). As someone mentioned earlier, small image sizes and low-resolutions work fine for simple McToy photos and cache box close-ups, but not for landscapes or wooded/leaf-covered scenes. For a VGA-size image, 100K is barely accepetable for scenics and landscapes without suffering great loses of quality and JPEG artifacts.

 

icon_wink.gif

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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quote:
Originally posted by geospotter:

The image below is less than 100K (about 90K). ... Personally, I'd sharpen it more, boost the brightness, and lower the contrast, but it works for demonstration purposes.


 

Actually, it doesn't work for demonstration purposes. Sharpen it and enhance the contrast, then try saving it at the same compression ratio you used for the first one and you'll see the increase in file size.

 

The trouble is, the JPEG standard in use today is obsolete and not very good for highly detailed or textured subjects. If they ever release the new JPEG-2000 standards, this will improve the situation considerably. With digital photography you simply can't have your cake and eat it, too. Highly detailed images need higher resolution (that's why landscape photographers have always used ultra-fined grain films and large formats). As someone mentioned earlier, small image sizes and low-resolutions work fine for simple McToy photos and cache box close-ups, but not for landscapes or wooded/leaf-covered scenes. For a VGA-size image, 100K is barely accepetable for scenics and landscapes without suffering great loses of quality and JPEG artifacts.

 

icon_wink.gif

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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quote:
Originally posted by geospotter:

quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

 

I would challenge anyone to post a photo of a scenic picture to on this site (like a large waterfall, mountain range, or another view which is often seen from a cache site) that I would be able to print out a hang on my wall and have it look nice. No, not a picture of a MCtoy and not a wallet size either. I'll be waiting


 

First, you are talking about two different things. Viewing an image on a monitor is one thing, printing it is another. The purpose of photos on THIS site is not to print them out to hang on your wall. If I liked one of your images that much I'd email you for the original.

 

But, I'll take your challenge. The image below is less than 100K (about 90K). Nice scene (from a nearby cache). I printed it about 7 X 10. Looks good to me. Personally, I'd sharpen it more, boost the brightness, and lower the contrast, but it works for demonstration purposes.

 

Some additional info -- I've been a portrait photographer for almost 30 years (scenics aren't my thing). If your prints don't look good I might suggest different paper, different inks, or perhaps a different printer. If you have any other questions regarding getting better prints, please feel free to email me. I'd be glad to try and help.

 

geospotter

 

http://www.crocker.com/~bclews/limtest.jpg


Well done geospotter. I concede we don't need to raise the 100k limit. That is exactly what I am tring to do. I just need a little more education and I will email you for some advice. Thanks, Ranger Ric

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

 

Actually, it doesn't work for demonstration purposes. Sharpen it and enhance the contrast, then try saving it at the same compression ratio you used for the first one and you'll see the increase in file size.


 

You're right! That's why I didn't do it.

 

You're also right about resolution, but that wasn't the question (or the challenge). It doesn't matter what camera/film you use when you display the results on a monitor. The monitor is the limiting factor. I use a variety of formats depending on circumstances. For Web display I use my 3.3 MP consumer quality digital. I hate carrying the 4X5 on cache hunts.

 

geospotter

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

 

Actually, it doesn't work for demonstration purposes.


 

Actually, it worked superbly for demonstration purposes.

 

This photo is an excellent example of a nice picture for use at geocaching.com. This is not photo.net or a place where you would grab photos to hang on your wall.

 

No one was really arguing that you will achieve better results with higher resolution...

 

-exConn

 

What is Project Virginia?

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quote:
Originally posted by geospotter:

You're also right about resolution, but that wasn't the question (or the challenge). It doesn't matter what camera/film you use when you display the results on a monitor. The monitor is the limiting factor.


 

The question was about raising the upload file size limit so that people could post higher-quality images and/or larger size images.

 

The "least common denominator" in PC video monitors is VGA (640x480) resolution. At that image size, you can't display a whole lot of image detail, but in many cases it is adequate. In addition, even VGA requires a good deal of compression to get its file size under 100KB.

 

I have no problem with people keeping their images to VGA size or smaller because it accomodates everyone. Even though I my own display is Ultra-VGA (1280x1024) display, I still resize my images to VGA-size or smaller for posting to the Web. If others feel the need to post larger size images, it's fine with me, and may be quite necessary when greater detail is desired.

 

Even a 2.1MP camera has much more resolution than necessary to fill my display! Cameras with higher resolutions are only needed for large prints, and are a pretty much a waste if you are only shooting for the Web. (I personally limit my 3.3MP camera to 8½"x11" prints.) Large prints are necessary if you want to exhibit greater richness, tonality, and detail, just as both a larger monitor and a high-resolution video card are necessary for greater image detail.

 

My point is that even at VGA size, you still need to keep the JPEG compression levels as low as possible to avoid degrading the image, and at any given coompression ratio, the more detail in the image the larger the file size will be.

 

test_vga1.jpgtest_vga2.jpg

test_vga3.jpgtest_vga4.jpg

 

The above examples are 300x300 pixel crops from four separate VGA images that were magnified by 200% and were saved at 1% (minimum), 9%, 15% and 30% compression ratios. The original file sizes were 197KB, 98KB, 67KB and 48KB respectively. As you can see, the JPEG artifacts get worse with increased compression. Even the 9% image, which just squeaks by the 100KB upload limit, is significantly affected. And note that these are not very detailed images.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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quote:
Originally posted by exConn:

This is _not_ photo.net or a place where you would grab photos to hang on your wall.

 


 

Says who?

 

Some of the people here take more pride in their photos (hence the original posters concerns, in case you didn't notice) than others do.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

In brief, it would still be a lot cheaper and easier just to raise the 100k limit a bit. I would challenge anyone to post a photo of a scenic picture to on this site (like a large waterfall, mountain range, or another view which is often seen from a cache site) that I would be able to print out a hang on my wall and have it look nice. No, not a picture of a MCtoy and not a wallet size either. I'll be waiting


 

The pictures posted on the Geocaching.COM are the right size and quality for their application: To inform and entertain.

 

A poster grade digital image would be more in the nature of a 50MB+ TIFF file for something that you could have printed and hang on your wall. The bandwith requirements would punish even cable modem users. And if you really wanted to hang that digital image on the wall, you would want to first manipulate it with one of those high end $200+ photo editors I mentioned.

 

If you purchased a digital camera, they all came with some simple editing software that allowed you to make basic adjustments to the color and to crop the final image. What you really need in addition is a palette manipulator and converter. A free version of LVIEW is what what I started with before buying Photoshop 4 and then CorelDraw's Photopaint 9. If you have any interest at all in improving your snapshots, then you want to get something better then what came with it.

 

The actual cost of increasing the image size limit is higher then you might think. Beside the storage cost of the image, there is the bandwith cost for transmitting the image for each hit. All that you are gaining is inmeacurablly better image quality for significently higher IT expense.

 

You are trying to solve the wrong problem. Users just need to better understand the tools and equipment available to them.

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

The above examples are 300x300 pixel crops from four separate VGA images that were magnified by 200% and were saved at 1% (minimum), 9%, 15% and 30% compression ratios. The original file sizes were 197KB, 98KB, 67KB and 48KB respectively. As you can see, the JPEG artifacts get worse with increased compression. Even the 9% image, which just squeaks by the 100KB upload limit, is significantly affected. And note that these are not very detailed images.


 

Rich,

The images you posted looked like they were converted to JPEG without their palette being simplified. This makes a great improvement in the final result result both in size and quaility.

 

The trick to getting small JPEG files is to minimize the amount of extrainious detail before you save them as JPEG. This means in order: saving the original image as TIFF, cropping, scalling, color palette reduction, and then saving as JPEG with 60% compression.

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quote:
Originally posted by DARC:

 

The trick to getting small JPEG files is to minimize the amount of extrainious detail before you save them as JPEG. This means in order: saving the original image as TIFF, cropping, scalling, color palette reduction, and then saving as JPEG with 60% compression.


 

DARC: I completely agree that it is often necessary and unavoidable to make trades-offs between image quality and file size. The JPEG format has a minimum 24-bit color depth (16.7 million colors) and changing the color pallete does little to reduce the file size--it just changes the colors available for display. Nor do I see the point to saving to TIFF unless I intend to re-edit the images. So exaclty how does this step affect the JPEG file size? When I'm editing an image, it's in the native format of the editor I'm using until I save it to some other specific format. Scaling changes the image dimensions and reduces detail--something that the original poster wished to avoid by asking for a increase in the upload limit. Finally, cropping is an aesthetic decision and may not be an option to the person composing the image, either in the camera or in an image editor.

 

For those who aren't interested in looking at "museum-grade" images, or putting up with the increased download times, we are already provided with the thumbnails and scaled-image in the individual cache log views. No need for anyone to click on the images to view their full sizes if this isn't desired.

 

I often look specifically for photos by certain cachers whom I've come to know as outstanding photograpers. I like to look at their full-size images, but that doesn't mean I want to print them and hang them on my wall! My monitor is quite capable of displaying a sharp, colorful and detailed image, and I'm willing to wait for the 20 or 30 seconds it takes to download over my "mere" 37Kb dial-up connection. If the upload file size limit were increased by 50%, that means I'd have to wait an additional 10 to 15 seconds for those images that take advantage of a new limit. Note that not all images posted will be this size, since even now not all images are 95-97KB maximum size.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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Rich,

 

"Museum-grade images" are impossible to view in their entirety on a computer monitor. Sure, you might get a TINY portion of a corner of the image, but not the whole thing. Reduce it to fit and it's no longer museum-quality.

 

Ranger Rick conceded that what I had done was exactly what he was looking for. He has emailed me, and I'm sure he will be posting wonderful photos shortly.

 

geospotter

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I've got a Sony Mavica digital camera. I got it because a dummy like me can get nice digital pictures with it and just stick the floppy in the computer and send the pictures where you want.

Today I went caching and took some pics of my dogs in the woods and in the ponds (they are labs.). The first picture I tried to send to the cache page failed. Too big. The next two went fine no problem at all. I changed nothing.

The first one had two dogs in it the other two only had one. Maybe there's too many dogs in one pic.

icon_biggrin.gif Just kidding.

But why wouldn't one out of the three download because of size? Same camera same settings.

Bob

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I've got a Sony Mavica digital camera. I got it because a dummy like me can get nice digital pictures with it and just stick the floppy in the computer and send the pictures where you want.

Today I went caching and took some pics of my dogs in the woods and in the ponds (they are labs.). The first picture I tried to send to the cache page failed. Too big. The next two went fine no problem at all. I changed nothing.

The first one had two dogs in it the other two only had one. Maybe there's too many dogs in one pic.

icon_biggrin.gif Just kidding.

But why wouldn't one out of the three download because of size? Same camera same settings.

Bob

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

 

Says who?


Says Jeremy, by implementing a 100kb limit. icon_smile.gif

 

quote:
Some of the people here take more pride in their photos (hence the original posters concerns, in case you didn't notice) than others do.

No question. I agree that some take more pride than others, and I appreciate their skills (and their photos).

 

And yes, I did notice the original post. The one where the concern was not being able to post a decent photo under 100kb. He challenged someone to post a nice one, geospotter did, and then that same original poster conceded that it was exactly what they wanted to do and there was no need to increase the limit.

 

So, I think that I am following the conversation just fine.

 

I was responding to your statement that the photo presented was not a good demonstration, when in fact, it was.

 

-exConn

 

What is Project Virginia?

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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

 

Says who?


Says Jeremy, by implementing a 100kb limit. icon_smile.gif

 

quote:
Some of the people here take more pride in their photos (hence the original posters concerns, in case you didn't notice) than others do.

No question. I agree that some take more pride than others, and I appreciate their skills (and their photos).

 

And yes, I did notice the original post. The one where the concern was not being able to post a decent photo under 100kb. He challenged someone to post a nice one, geospotter did, and then that same original poster conceded that it was exactly what they wanted to do and there was no need to increase the limit.

 

So, I think that I am following the conversation just fine.

 

I was responding to your statement that the photo presented was not a good demonstration, when in fact, it was.

 

-exConn

 

What is Project Virginia?

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quote:
Originally posted by exConn:

Says Jeremy, by implementing a 100kb limit. icon_smile.gif


 

Actually, he never said anything of the kind. I believe that you are merely assuming it. I'd be willing to bet that the 100KB limit was mostly arbitrary. You pick a number and see how it works out.

 

quote:
I was responding to your statement that the photo presented was not a good demonstration, when in fact, it was.

 

I'm afraid that's a matter of opinion and standards. Obviously ours disagree.

 

Cheers ....

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by exConn:

Says Jeremy, by implementing a 100kb limit. icon_smile.gif


 

Actually, he never said anything of the kind. I believe that you are merely assuming it. I'd be willing to bet that the 100KB limit was mostly arbitrary. You pick a number and see how it works out.

 

quote:
I was responding to your statement that the photo presented was not a good demonstration, when in fact, it was.

 

I'm afraid that's a matter of opinion and standards. Obviously ours disagree.

 

Cheers ....

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

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I would like to thank all those that gave me some suggestions about this subject. I did take some pointers from Geospotter and was able to get a scenic shot down to 95KB and when I printed it at about a 8"x6" it was an acceptable picture for my wall. That is all I really wanted. I do see some images posted on the cache sites that I would like to frame because I may never get to see some of these area in person. I did try shrinking some portrait oriented photos and had more trouble with them than the landscape oriented ones. I don't know why, but when I rotate them and try resizing, the picture comes out a little grainy. I still think the extra 20kb would make things a lot easier. Thanks again fellow geocachers

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

I don't know why, but when I rotate them and try resizing, the picture comes out a little grainy.


 

RR, whenever you rotate JPEG images it's important to use a "lossless" transformation. Not all image editing software provides this feature. Check to be sure that the software you are using offers lossless rotation/mirroring operations.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

I don't know why, but when I rotate them and try resizing, the picture comes out a little grainy.


 

RR, whenever you rotate JPEG images it's important to use a "lossless" transformation. Not all image editing software provides this feature. Check to be sure that the software you are using offers lossless rotation/mirroring operations.

 

Cheers ...

 

_~Rich in NEPA~_

 

http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/1132_1200.jpg

 

__=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===__


Thanks for the info Rich, I'll look into that.
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quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

DARC: I completely agree that it is often necessary and unavoidable to make trades-offs between image quality and file size. The JPEG format has a minimum 24-bit color depth (16.7 million colors) and changing the color pallete does little to reduce the file size--it just changes the colors available for display. Nor do I see the point to saving to TIFF unless I intend to re-edit the images. So exaclty how does this step affect the JPEG file size? When I'm editing an image, it's in the native format of the editor I'm using _until_ I save it to some other specific format. Scaling changes the image dimensions and reduces detail--something that the original poster wished to avoid by asking for a increase in the upload limit. Finally, cropping is an aesthetic decision and may not be an option to the person composing the image, either in the camera or in an image editor.


JPEG is a lossy compression image format and TIFF is a loss-less image format. This is why you want to save all original images in TIF or the native loss-less format of your photo editor.

 

Palette reduction means setting similar colors to the same. Converting an image to GIF and then to JPEG would be a poor-man's way of grossly doing this. CorelDraw's Photopaint has an image palatizer function that works great for me. Since more of the image data is the same after palette reduction, the JPEG compression algorithm generates smaller files.

 

A real world example for me is a image that started out as a 409KB JPEG out of a digital camera and ended up being 52KB after palette reduction and saving as JPEG with 70% compression.

The resulting image was as good as the original.

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by DARC:

Palette reduction means setting similar colors to the same. Converting an image to GIF and then to JPEG would be a poor-man's way of grossly doing this. CorelDraw's Photopaint has an image palatizer function that works great for me. Since more of the image data is the same after palette reduction, the JPEG compression algorithm generates smaller files.

 

A real world example for me is a image that started out as a 409KB JPEG out of a digital camera and ended up being 52KB after palette reduction and saving as JPEG with 70% compression.

The resulting image was as good as the original.


 

DARC, I understand everything you are saying, but I still believe you are doing more harm to your images than good. I'd also like to suggest that you might want to take a closer look into these methods. I've experimented with many of them and have long since come to reject their value.

 

When you reduce the number of colors in an image by either nearest color or error reduction processes, in effect you create "noise." In a heavily-textured subject you won't notice much of the negative effects from the noise, but it is readily apparent in even-toned subjects and smooth graduations. And when you save this image in JPEG format, the file size will usually be greater (believe it or not!) than the original image, given the same compression ratios. The irony is that the JPEG artifacts that are introduced can sometimes help to obscure this added noise, but if you were to scale up and compare the two images side-by-side, you would be appalled at their differences! I believe that this is why you are needing to use such high compression levels. At worse I hardly ever go beyond 25%, and typically use only 15-20% compression for my Web images.

 

Another thing that's significant is to view your images with a calibrated high-accutance monitor, or an LCD display. Most consumer-grade CRT's have poorly focused electron beams, and their anti-reflection coatings further reduce sharpness. (I doubt many of us can afford a Barco Pre-press Reference monitor, but if you could seen one, you'd be impressed!) Most LCD's have no easy way to fine-tune their gamma and chroma settings, but they do provide exceptional sharpness.

 

I'm just bringing these issues to the forefront because it's pretty easy to overlook the obvious. I had to endure a long learning curve in my switch to digital, and I'm still discovering new things.

 

Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

DARC, I understand _everything_ you are saying, but I still believe you are doing more harm to your images than good. I'd also like to suggest that you might want to take a closer look into these methods. I've experimented with many of them and have long since come to reject their value.


 

If you took a large high quality digital image and tried to do something presentation grade with it, then I agree that the techniques I propose will degrade it for publishing by a service bureau or even a high quality printer.

 

However the image size restrictions on Geocaching prevent anyone from even approaching this quality. Instead of 30,000 by 500,000 pixels, we have to make do with 600 by 400 pixels, significantly less then most modern digital cameras. At these resolutions, the techniques I’m using make perfect sense since there is limited data to start with.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

When you reduce the number of colors in an image by either nearest color or error reduction processes, in effect you create "noise." In a heavily-textured subject you won't notice much of the negative effects from the noise, but it is readily apparent in even-toned subjects and smooth graduations.


 

The process you describe is called dithering. Most digital imaging software allows you to specify the method of dithering and even to turn it off. When I reduce the palette of an image, I disable dithering. Turning it on while doing color reduction does bad things.

 

In addition, CorelDraw’s Photopaint has an option to specify the size of the palette you want to end up with. Lately I’m using 128 Color Palette in my final image before converting to JPEG. If an image has delicate shading, then I’ll consider going up to 254 colors to retrain quality at the expense of final image size.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

And when you save this image in JPEG format, the file size will usually be _greater_ (believe it or not!) than the original image, given the same compression ratios. The irony is that the JPEG artifacts that are introduced can sometimes help to obscure this added noise, but if you were to scale up and compare the two images side-by-side, you would be appalled at their differences! I believe that this is why you are needing to use such high compression levels. At worse I hardly ever go beyond 25%, and typically use only 15-20% compression for my Web images.


 

Yep, uncompressed JPEGS are huge. The artifacts you describe are because JPEGS uses a LOSSY form of compression. If you convert an image to JPEG, the results is different and of less quality then the original image. Seen it, understand it, know how to get around it.

 

Now I don’t need to use 60% compression. I use it because I can. By having more limited and similar color data in an image the JPEG compression routine can do a more efficient job of packing image data into a smaller file. If I didn’t use color palette reduction, the best JPEG compression I could get away with would be 25%.

 

Try non dithered color compression before you save to JPEG, your web images will be smaller and faster to load.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

Another thing that's significant is to view your images with a calibrated high-accutance monitor, or an LCD display. Most consumer-grade CRT's have poorly focused electron beams, and their anti-reflection coatings further reduce sharpness. (I doubt many of us can afford a Barco Pre-press Reference monitor, but if you could seen one, you'd be impressed!) Most LCD's have no easy way to fine-tune their gamma and chroma settings, but they do provide exceptional sharpness.


 

I don’t believe this is significant at all. If a test image looks like the print, then that is good enough. Move on to something that has greater impact on the image.

 

You have no control over how your customer is going to view the image. On a crappy LCD laptop, or a 1980’s era VGA monitor with a screen saver burned into the phosphor. icon_biggrin.gif

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

DARC, I understand _everything_ you are saying, but I still believe you are doing more harm to your images than good. I'd also like to suggest that you might want to take a closer look into these methods. I've experimented with many of them and have long since come to reject their value.


 

If you took a large high quality digital image and tried to do something presentation grade with it, then I agree that the techniques I propose will degrade it for publishing by a service bureau or even a high quality printer.

 

However the image size restrictions on Geocaching prevent anyone from even approaching this quality. Instead of 30,000 by 500,000 pixels, we have to make do with 600 by 400 pixels, significantly less then most modern digital cameras. At these resolutions, the techniques I’m using make perfect sense since there is limited data to start with.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

When you reduce the number of colors in an image by either nearest color or error reduction processes, in effect you create "noise." In a heavily-textured subject you won't notice much of the negative effects from the noise, but it is readily apparent in even-toned subjects and smooth graduations.


 

The process you describe is called dithering. Most digital imaging software allows you to specify the method of dithering and even to turn it off. When I reduce the palette of an image, I disable dithering. Turning it on while doing color reduction does bad things.

 

In addition, CorelDraw’s Photopaint has an option to specify the size of the palette you want to end up with. Lately I’m using 128 Color Palette in my final image before converting to JPEG. If an image has delicate shading, then I’ll consider going up to 254 colors to retrain quality at the expense of final image size.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

And when you save this image in JPEG format, the file size will usually be _greater_ (believe it or not!) than the original image, given the same compression ratios. The irony is that the JPEG artifacts that are introduced can sometimes help to obscure this added noise, but if you were to scale up and compare the two images side-by-side, you would be appalled at their differences! I believe that this is why you are needing to use such high compression levels. At worse I hardly ever go beyond 25%, and typically use only 15-20% compression for my Web images.


 

Yep, uncompressed JPEGS are huge. The artifacts you describe are because JPEGS uses a LOSSY form of compression. If you convert an image to JPEG, the results is different and of less quality then the original image. Seen it, understand it, know how to get around it.

 

Now I don’t need to use 60% compression. I use it because I can. By having more limited and similar color data in an image the JPEG compression routine can do a more efficient job of packing image data into a smaller file. If I didn’t use color palette reduction, the best JPEG compression I could get away with would be 25%.

 

Try non dithered color compression before you save to JPEG, your web images will be smaller and faster to load.

 

quote:
Originally posted by Rich in NEPA:

Another thing that's significant is to view your images with a calibrated high-accutance monitor, or an LCD display. Most consumer-grade CRT's have poorly focused electron beams, and their anti-reflection coatings further reduce sharpness. (I doubt many of us can afford a Barco Pre-press Reference monitor, but if you could seen one, you'd be impressed!) Most LCD's have no easy way to fine-tune their gamma and chroma settings, but they do provide exceptional sharpness.


 

I don’t believe this is significant at all. If a test image looks like the print, then that is good enough. Move on to something that has greater impact on the image.

 

You have no control over how your customer is going to view the image. On a crappy LCD laptop, or a 1980’s era VGA monitor with a screen saver burned into the phosphor. icon_biggrin.gif

Link to comment

quote:
Originally posted by DARC:

If we agree on the results of the techniques. Then can we agree on what minimum resolution/quality of an image is appropiate for GEOCACHING.COM ?


 

DARC, I've seen your posted pictures. I'm afraid there's not much we are going to agree on. Cheers ...

 

~Rich in NEPA~

 

1132_1200.jpg

 

=== A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. ===

 

[This message was edited by Rich in NEPA on March 20, 2002 at 04:22 AM.]

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