# Phenominen



## Roy (Feb 23, 2003)

Has anyone noticed a strange phenominen happening recently ?

It seems like there is a secret society who have a mission to post the largest pictures they can.









Maybe it is a competition that I do not know about.

Have a look at the pictures from a few months ago then have a look now. Lots of people are posting pictures over 800 pixels and a whopping 200k +.

I pity the poor dial up members who have no chance of seeing the pictures.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

I know.

Big is not always best, as a lady told me today.









100 kb and 600 pixel width seems a good compromise. A little tweaking, down sizing and a subtle unsharp mask make all the difference.


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## Roy (Feb 23, 2003)

I'm not complaining but I do feel that there may be many like me that don't even bother to wait for the large images to load.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

High rez (large size) looks good even on a PC screen but it is a matter of compromise for those who have a web site to take into account that not everyone has a fast or (more often, these days) efficient ISP on demand.

I suppose we ought to be conservative until there is a level playing field?

I would love to double my bandwidth at a reasonable cost.


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## rodiow (Nov 6, 2004)

oops , ........sorry boss ! ...am getting a guilty feeling ....thinking I may have fallen into this big picture category........{slowly raises sleeve to await punishment].........wots the ideal pixel size Roy? will make amends


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## Roy (Feb 23, 2003)

I'm not singling anyone out or wanting to limit sizes, just making an observation. If everone is ok with the large pictures then that is fine. I would just like to know peoples views on them.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2004)

Keep them small.

No need for giant pics, you can see what the pic is about at a reasonable size.


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

I have two windows open at the same time usually, one to wiz through the posts with no pictures and one for Griff's Tissot pictures, I read all the latest posts on the board whilst waiting for them to come in!









Sorry griff it's not just you and it doesn't bother me as I can wait to see what's loading.

Fridays can be a bit challenging sometimes!


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

> I'm not complaining but I do feel that there may be many like me that don't even bother to wait for the large images to load.


Even with broadband, in the longer threads with lots of pictures I often don't wait for them to fully load.

Personally I try to limit mine to a max of 600 pixels wide or 450 pixels high so that they should fit on a screen resolution of 640x480.


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## Mrcrowley (Apr 23, 2003)

Roy said:


> I'm not complaining but I do feel that there may be many like me that don't even bother to wait for the large images to load.


 Roy

I just put my pics on my wrist-watch server. So can I assume you have programmed that to show them at an acceptable size? They usually look OK so won't be messing up the screen will they?


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

I've never understood unsharpen mask Stan, I just use sharpen. What's the difference?

And I now know how to change the compression so that helps. I don't think physical size is that much of a problem, 800 wide is poss as big as it needs to be (is anyone still on 640x 480?)

But file size is a big problem. try and keep it below 100k if poss would be my advice or if it's bigger post a link and it can load away in another window.


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## AlexR (May 11, 2003)

I never wait for pics to download,I have had to go back to dial up for a while,so it is a right Royal pain,IMO


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## Roy (Feb 23, 2003)

Mrcrowley said:


> Roy said:
> 
> 
> > I'm not complaining but I do feel that there may be many like me that don't even bother to wait for the large images to load.
> ...


 The images will show up exactly as you save them Paul,


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

the 1st page last friday there were 13 pictures posted only 4 of which were bigger than 70K. two of them were over 200K & the total was a whopping 1274k

Neil wins the small is beautiful prize 18K !


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

pg tips said:



> ...(is anyone still on 640x 480?)
> 
> But file size is a big problem. try and keep it below 100k if poss would be my advice


I personally don't know anyone still on 640x480 in this country, but there may be someone using some older equipment somewhere else in the world that may be.

Size is important though (hmm, where have I heard that before?). Reminds me of someone who, several years ago, emailed his CV to our company looking for a job in the IT Dept. Inside the document he'd embeded a photograph of himself. Nice touch, except that he'd chosen to embed the photo as a 3 or 4MB bitmap file







Needless to say we weren't impressed and he didn't get the job.


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

Roy said:


> I'm not singling anyone out or wanting to limit sizes, just making an observation. If everone is ok with the large pictures then that is fine. I would just like to know peoples views on them.


I like pics of various sizes, just like when ordering prints. My pics are from Photobucket, who automatically resize pics which are over 250kb. If big pics are a problem then decide on a limit, or maybe the software can resize pics going to post once a max is established. I just think the clarity and detail is better when the camera is set to fine detail and large format. My pc loads them up almost immediately.

There is no mission or competition from me to load the largest pics


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

To save any further comments, I for one will continue to take the camera pictures at the same settings for maximum clarity of detail, but resize them smaller in Photobucket before posting to the forum.

Trust that will be more satisfactory to those that say they can't be bothered waiting for pictures to load.


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## rhaythorne (Jan 12, 2004)

Just one more comment









Personally, I think that the Photography forum should permit relatively large (in terms of file size and image dimensions) pictures. After all, it is a "photography" forum, so limiting the size of pictures seems a bit counter-productive. Although anything bigger than 1280x1024 isn't going to fit on any screen in my possession and I'd imagine 1024x768 is the max for a lot of people. Waiting for the image to download here probably shouldn't be too much of an issue as I'd guess most come here hoping to see some stunning photography as well as read some technical discussions.

In the other forums/threads though, I'd think a max of 800x600 would be a more suitable size, with correspondingly smaller file sizes that download faster.


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## Ron Jr (Sep 10, 2003)

I always size mine exactly the same but my current host resizes them to three different sizes sm (basically thumbnail), md (supposed to be the size I saved) and lg (real big). When I look on their site the md looks fine, unfortunatly when I copy the link about 3/4 of the times it is huge (though looks good in preview







). So to make a long explination longer I do try and I am looking for a new host.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

PG,

Unsharp mask tends to affect only the edges of the image and not the denser areas. It gives a better sharpening affect on photos without making then gritty.

I try to keep the radius to around 0.8 for photos. Keep it subtle is the key, images tend to lose sharpness when they are down sized so I use a bit of USM once I've resized before saving.

Take a look at this link:-

http://www.scantips.com/simple6.html


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## pg tips (May 16, 2003)

tthks 4 the link Stan. I'll try that on my next shots.


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Hope it helps old mate.


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