Cachemere Posted March 24, 2002 Share Posted March 24, 2002 Our team just released a TB yesterday and we wanted to upload a few pictures. I know how to upload, but here's the deal. Our digital camera is a JVC and takes beautiful photos. The pics we see onscreen are great but once we upload them to the cache page or TB page, they look horrible. I have Micrografx Picture Publisher (have no clue how to use it, was installed by the IT guy at work) and all I see is ppi instead of dpi. I can't seem to manipulate the pictures. My OP is Windows ME. Is any of this making any sense? I know I'm old, and they say sometimes you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Can anyone out there help me or point me in a direction where I can help myself? Thanks. Quote Link to comment
+Sparhawk Posted March 24, 2002 Share Posted March 24, 2002 Pictures you say... I notice that when I have uploaded pics they look terrible ( out of focus etc) but... if I do a refresh on the page everything clears up. give it a try Hope you and yours are having as much fun as my family . Steven_000 Quote Link to comment
+DougsBrat Posted March 24, 2002 Share Posted March 24, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Cachemere: Our team just released a TB yesterday and we wanted to upload a few pictures. I know how to upload, but here's the deal. Our digital camera is a JVC and takes beautiful photos. The pics we see onscreen are great but once we upload them to the cache page or TB page, they look horrible. Thanks. It may be a size issue. when a web page streaches a pic to fit the page definition you end up with a mess. you might try different sizes to see what looks the best when it is on the page, then make them all that size No matter where you go... There you are! Quote Link to comment
+Rich in NEPA Posted March 24, 2002 Share Posted March 24, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Cachemere: Can anyone out there help me or point me in a direction where I can help myself? Cachemere, this is a complicated subject to attempt explaining in a single reply. I'm sure you will get other advice as this thread evolves. However, let me start with this much: The first thing you want to do is forget about PPI and DPI since it is counterproductive to understanding how it all really works. These are essentially publishing terms and not really relevant to video monitors (although you are likely to be told otherwise by authoritative sources, no less). Train yourself to only think of image resolution in pixel dimensions. Computer video displays come in different resolutions, such as VGA (640 pixels wide by 480 pixels high -- 640x480 for short) and SVGA (800x600 pixels). Other video display resolutions, for example, include XGA (1024x768 pixels), SXGA (1280x1024 pixels), and UXGA (1600x1200 pixels). A "pixel" is a picture element. It is a single one of those discrete, tiny colored dots that make up your images, just like a mosaic of tiles. If your camera has a 2.1 megapixel sensor, the images it produces will be a maximum of 1600x1200 pixels. Obviously, you can't display the full image from your camera in it's entirety unless your monitor is capable of displaying UXGA resolution or higher. In addition, these images when saved in JPEG format can be anywhere from 500KB to 1.5MB in file size. This is too big for uploading to the Geocaching website because of the 100KB limit that is imposed on image files. The thing you will need to do is resize your images to fit the most common monitor sizes (VGA or SVGA) or even smaller, so that everyone can view them without having to scroll left/right and up/down. Unfortunately, when you resize any image you will throw away important details—you simply cannot represent all of the information contained in a 1600x1200 image in one that only has 640x480 pixels. You need to save your original image as it came from the camera by not writing over it, but resize it in an image editor (you mentioned that you have Picture Publisher) and save it using a different filename. Generally, you will save it in the JPEG format, which will also allow you to "compress" the image to make the file size even smaller. In this way you can produce a VGA-size image that is still under to 100KB limit. Please note that there is a serious tradeoff that goes along with JPEG compression: it causes a further deterioration of image quality. This is where you have to find a happy medium between image dimensions (pixels) and file size. Remember, the less manipulation you do to your images while getting them to the appropriate dimensions, the better they will look. Your software will typically have a menu selection for resizing (sometimes called resampling, but if you have both options, select "resize."). Choose either the "pixel size" or the "percentage of original size" option instead of using actual dimensions such as inches or millimeters, and you will avoid the PPI/DPI hassles. There are any number of good websites which can help explain digital image editing, and you may want to check out a few of them. Hope this helps. Cheers .... ~Rich in NEPA~ === 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 24, 2002 at 12:46 PM.] Quote Link to comment
+MrGigabyte Posted March 24, 2002 Share Posted March 24, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Cachemere: upload them to the cache page or TB page, they look horrible. What is the URL of the TB page? If you tell us where your images are, it is much easier to diagnose what is wrong. Quote Link to comment
Cachemere Posted March 24, 2002 Author Share Posted March 24, 2002 My thanks to everyone! I knew I could count on you to help me out here. I had tried just about everything but this... quote:Originally posted by Steven_000:I notice that when I have uploaded pics they look terrible ( out of focus etc) but... if I do a refresh on the page everything clears up. give it a try Steven_000 I tried a refresh but that didn't seem to help. What DID help was to completely log out and back in again. The pictures look great now! You can see them on Charlotte's page. My sincere thanks to all of you! Quote Link to comment
Cachemere Posted March 24, 2002 Author Share Posted March 24, 2002 My thanks to everyone! I knew I could count on you to help me out here. I had tried just about everything but this... quote:Originally posted by Steven_000:I notice that when I have uploaded pics they look terrible ( out of focus etc) but... if I do a refresh on the page everything clears up. give it a try Steven_000 I tried a refresh but that didn't seem to help. What DID help was to completely log out and back in again. The pictures look great now! You can see them on Charlotte's page. My sincere thanks to all of you! Quote Link to comment
+RAD Dad Posted March 25, 2002 Share Posted March 25, 2002 I have a problem with my pictures looking bad when I click on them, but if I then click on the picture itself, it opens it in a new window and it looks just perfect. What is the problem here? It's not the picture itself, as I can get it to look right, but it takes an extra step, one that I fear many might not know to take, so they won't get to see my pictures clearly. ummmm....not sure what to say here....so ummm, well errrr, uhhhh, well I guess that's it. Quote Link to comment
+Rich in NEPA Posted March 25, 2002 Share Posted March 25, 2002 quote:Originally posted by RAD Dad:I have a problem with my pictures looking bad when I click on them, but if I then click on the picture itself, it opens it in a new window and it looks just perfect. RAD, if you're referring to the "new & improved" individual cache log pages, then welcome to the club! Personally, I preferred the old system a lot more, where you clicked on each of the picture links from the main cache page and were given a new window with the entire original image displayed. The routine that Jeremy uses to create the scaled down view on the new page really degrades the image. I don't follow how this whole system saves bandwidth for the Website because I know that I end up going through all these extra steps and downloads just to see the unadulterated images. Cheers ... ~Rich in NEPA~ === A man with a GPS receiver knows where he is; a man with two GPS receivers is never sure. === Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.