The way this site handles pictures could really be improved.

I am a publisher on a few other sites and one of the best ones is "Instructables".

I can upload any image I want and then the site makes a range of images available for viewing.

And when I feel like coming here, with all the hassle I have to go through to get great pictures reduced in dimensions and file size (and image quality), I think it's one of the greatest disincentives to posting any pictures.

The perpetual insistence of this practice is much like asking every one to write up their posts as hand coded web pages.... it belongs in the dark ages.

It's a pity tho, because the practice doesn't work and I think it's way smarter to be doing what the other sites do, that are handling the pictures - so much better.

For Example - go to these pages and click on the "i" on the images and you can see the whole (2032x1354) 468 KB images.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Brok...ake-a-new-one/

http://www.instructables.com/id/A-BR...-avoids-mostl/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Leat...a_Watch_Cover/



So I have made the decision that I am not going to post any more pictures here until the owners reprogram the site and remove the archaic "This is the way we have always done it" photo handling software; and the never ending insistence that everyone comply with it - by replacing it with better software.

are you taking your bat and ball home too
witch1

:bye1: see ya.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HammaHed

<snip>....

So I have made the decision that I am not going to post any more pictures here until the owners reprogram the site and remove the archaic "This is the way we have always done it" photo handling software; and the never ending insistence that everyone comply with it - by replacing it with better software.

---

I am sooooooo broken up by that. If you really want to make your point, you should stamp your foot and go. :bye1:

Thought the numbers looked a bit suss, so I hit the link (2032x1354) 468 KB in the original post. It opened the pic as 4 screens full the resized it to a single screen. Guess what 480 x 370 approx at 470KB, so there is something suss with the numbers.

HammaHed, the forums are used by people witha range of internet connections from dialup through mobile, 256k ADSL to fast ADSL 2+. The nice people who fund and operate this site spend a lot of their time and effort to allow it to be accessible to all, not just a privledged few with the latest and greatest gear and access. Resizing/editing pics prior to uploading is not really a major hassle. Hope you are willing to reconsider your stance when you have something positive to contribute.

This forum not good enough for you then

Goodbye

and don't let the door hit you in rear on your way.



Terry

Yeah, once when I rode my donkey to the very edge of town, I heard from a bloke, who had a mate, who ran into a fellow who didn't look like he was from around these parts, that they have horseless carriges and flying machines too..

Good one Jim Bob's.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HammaHed

I am a publisher on a few other sites and one of the best ones is "Instructables".

I can upload any image I want and then the site makes a range of images available for viewing.

And when I feel like coming here, with all the hassle I have to go through to get great pictures reduced in dimensions and file size (and image quality), I think it's one of the greatest disincentives to posting any pictures.

The perpetual insistence of this practice is much like asking every one to write up their posts as hand coded web pages.... it belongs in the dark ages.

It's a pity tho, because the practice doesn't work and I think it's way smarter to be doing what the other sites do, that are handling the pictures - so much better.

For Example - go to these pages and click on the "i" on the images and you can see the whole (2032x1354) 468 KB images.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Brok...ake-a-new-one/

http://www.instructables.com/id/A-BR...-avoids-mostl/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Leat...a_Watch_Cover/



So I have made the decision that I am not going to post any more pictures here until the owners reprogram the site and remove the archaic "This is the way we have always done it" photo handling software; and the never ending insistence that everyone comply with it - by replacing it with better software.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HammaHed

Yeah, once when I rode my donkey to the very edge of town, I heard from a bloke, who had a mate, who ran into a fellow who didn't look like he was from around these parts, that they have horseless carriges and flying machines too..

Good one Jim Bob's.

---

Tantrums AND sarcasm, you're really trying hard to make friends aren't you Hamma.

HH uses Instructables as an example, but although it may handle photos better, as a text-based discussion forum it'd be a dismal failure. It's basically just linked blogs with feedback through comments at the #### end.

It's a bit like complaining about how this site handles videos, then saying it should be more like UTube. :rolleyes:

Damn i think i'll just go sell all my tools, buy a new computer
then subscribe to broadband, i'll keep a screwdriver so i can assemble
those flatpacks that make our lives so much easier these days.

And it took you more than a month to discover that?

Jumbo pictures add very little value here, and at most other sites too.

And, just because a video CAN be made, doesn't ensure that it SHOULD be made.

Cheers,
Joe

Won't be any loss if you don't want to contribute in here.

:bye:

OK HH I have clicked on the link you provided, don't think that example has much to offer.

Have you considered that WWF stores pics permanently rather than links to other sites. The benefit being they will always be there unlike other forums that only allow an external link. The pic hosting site goes belly up so no more link and no more pics in the post.....aggravating in the extreme.

I should say you have already gathered the current set up works well for many reasons :2tsup:

ham ahead,
too bad we cant have archaic and eat it too
witch1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by witch1

ham ahead,
too bad we cant have archaic and eat it too
witch1

---

You forgot the :D:D:D

I actually do think that the picture policy does needs some attention. Maybe not in the way that HH says but having posted 1,219 attachments that takes up 52.14 MB, ie I'm averaging 43 kB per picture. All of my pictures are 800 x 600 or close to it or approximately 10 pixels per byte.

Since download speed is not proportional to image size but file size and 100 kB is the max file size, why shouldn't someone be permitted to upload a 1000 x 1000 provided it comes in under 100 kb?

Another somewhat irritating aspect is all (landscape or portrait) shots must be under 600 pixels high. What's the difference in download if it is 800 x 600, or 600 x 800? 600 pixel high? Portrait images are all under resolved compared to their 800 pixel wide couterparts and effectively down grade the quality of images provided.

Also what happens when I can't fit something into one picture is I end taking 3 or 4 of them and posting more picts than I need to.

I would rather have 4 pictures of 1000 x 1000 (still under 100 kb) each, than 10 pics at 800 (max wide) x 600 (Max high). The rationale of users have small screens is becoming less significant as more and more users upgrade their gear.

So my suggestion is to up the size to a max of 1000 x 1000 and stick with the 100 kb limit. Not everyone will be able to squeeze their pics hard enough to reach that limit every time anyway but for those that can - what good reason is there not to permit this?

No I will not take my big images and post them elsewhere, I already do that. :D

It'll be interesting to see if Instructables is still around to celebrate its tenth birthday...

Current stats on WWF: nearly a million posts, over 14,000 active members, at 7.30 on a Wednesday morning, nearly 700 users online.

Understandables: 20 total views, at least the last 7 were generated by this thread...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joe greiner

Jumbo pictures add very little value here, and at most other sites too.

---

The larger the image, the more detail is visible, which can be of imense value. I usually give up on most illustrated threads here because the images are so small and I can seldom see what the poster is describing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BobL

I actually do think that the picture policy does needs some attention. Maybe not in the way that HH says but having posted 1,219 attachments that takes up 52.14 MB, ie I'm averaging 43 kB per picture. All of my pictures are 800 x 600 or close to it or approximately 10 pixels per byte.

Since download speed is not proportional to image size but file size and 100 kB is the max file size, why shouldn't someone be permitted to upload a 1000 x 1000 provided it comes in under 100 kb?

---

Hear hear!

[Devil's advocate] Even if some members do still have small monitors and dial-up connections, should the majority be held back by the lowest denominator?

While I think the original post could have been phrased much more pleasantly:rolleyes:, what I read as the main point was that on this board, the responsibility for complying with the technical limitations lies with the user.

The suggestion was that this responsibility could be moved to the software that runs this board. IE - wouldn't it be nice if you could just upload, and the *software* would resize the pictures to comply with the chosen and agreed specs for pictures on this board.

Just wondering if anyone has counted the number of posts where the poster has been unable to post pics, or had to be instructed how to, or redirected to another site in order to resize their images.?

Cheers,
Andrew

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Woodwould

The larger the image, the more detail is visible, which can be of imense value. I usually give up on most illustrated threads here because the images are so small and I can seldom see what the poster is describing.

---

WW - the thumbnails can be difficult to see, but I usually find sufficient detail in the pictures once I double click on the tumbnails and open them!

Quote:

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[Devil's advocate] Even if some members do still have small monitors and dial-up connections, should the majority be held back by the lowest denominator?

---

ISTR that within the last few months Neil posted stats showing that the "minority" is in fact very large (almost a majority and certainly more than the % of the vote that any winning party in UK elections has received since 1900.

However, once it is clear that dial-up has dwindled to a very small minority of active users, I agree that this justification for image restrictions will have much less weight. As against that there is the issue of storage of uploads and that is where the Boss will have his final say (unless someone is offering free storage....:U)

BTW I also agree with BobL's suggestion.

By keeping to the normal size image does not impede the users that have dial up etc, we have a lot of people on our mailing list that are unable to recieve our small newsletter because it takes too long to upload because of dialup. Yes there is still a lot out there and yes they do eventually go to broadband if they feel the need.


If you have a photo shop on your computor use that to bring the size down and if you want to highlight a particular part of the photo just crop and save . We dont need extra high resolution to see what is going on as woodies we like to see the overall project with a description of how it was made.

As proven the other day I cant remember the persons name but he had 4 glorious pictures of boxes that were nice and clear and everyone could see what detail he had and he kept those under the limits.

Maybe there is room for further change. I seem to remember there was a size limit of 100kb for photos, and I got used to that with the basic photo program I was using. Then suddenly the parameters changed, which is 800 x 600 or something, and I can't remember the number of times I've attempted to post photos, had them rejected.:( Endless resizings later I'll get lucky.
I'm not overly good with the settings on digital cameras, or computers for that matter, and most photo/imaging software is way over my head. I'm in awe of the few folk here who manage to imbed multiple photos within their post, and mysteriously not go over the size limit!!
I'd much prefer it if there was some program in place that automatically resized things to an optimum. How hard, or how expense to acheive that I have no idea.

Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by arose62

The suggestion was that this responsibility could be moved to the software that runs this board. IE - wouldn't it be nice if you could just upload, and the *software* would resize the pictures to comply with the chosen and agreed specs for pictures on this board.

---

That would be nice but the people who pay to host the forum have to pay for the bigger upload and then waste server resources processing the image making response times slower for the 13999 other people who do crop and resize their images..

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

We dont need extra high resolution to see what is going on as woodies we like to see the overall project with a description of how it was made.

---

Who are the "We" Jim? :q :U

I don't think it's unreasonable to have 800 x 600 as the standard size for images. That would suit everyone - even the majority. :q :U

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

By keeping to the normal size image does not impede the users that have dial up etc, we have a lot of people on our mailing list that are unable to recieve our small newsletter because it takes too long to upload because of dialup. Yes there is still a lot out there and yes they do eventually go to broadband if they feel the need.

---

Once again people are confusing Image size with File size. These are not directly related. I can squeeze some of my 800 x 600 images to under 30 k and still retain a high degree of clarity. One trick to doing this is to use a mono background. eg this file is only 28k.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...4&d=1206752920
This one is magnified x 2 so is equivalent in resolution to 1700 x 1200 on the original. The bigger one shows the apricot wood grain a bit clearer but surely it would be nice to see a bit more of it?:D
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...1&d=1244593814

Here is a recently posted picture of 443 x 336 pixels with a file size of 72 k
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...7&d=1244355555
Same picture at almost double the number of pixels (800 x 600) but only 68 k
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...1&d=1244592560
Of course it does not look as sharp because without access to the original I cannot make the picture any sharper than it actually is but that would not change the file size by much.

Quote:

---

If you have a photo shop on your computor use that to bring the size down and if you want to highlight a particular part of the photo just crop and save . We dont need extra high resolution to see what is going on as woodies we like to see the overall project with a description of how it was made.

---

Sorry I disagree, When Derek posts pictures of a new tool I want to see the whole tool and every detail in detail. What happens is some people end up posting multiple picts to be able to show this detail. As I said

Quote:

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As proven the other day I cant remember the persons name but he had 4 glorious pictures of boxes that were nice and clear and everyone could see what detail he had and he kept those under the limits.

---

That was probably because there was no significant amount of fine detail to see.

At the very least portrait shots should have the same pixel number rights as landscape shots so the limit should be raised to 800 x 800 pixels.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by m2c1Iw

You forgot the :D:D:D

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Maybe he thought he had to resize them. :roflmao:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Woodwould

The larger the image, the more detail is visible, which can be of imense value. I usually give up on most illustrated threads here because the images are so small and I can seldom see what the poster is describing.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Woodwould

I don't think it's unreasonable to have 800 x 600 as the standard size for images. That would suit everyone - even the majority. :q :U

---

Aren't you contradicting youself here? Current limit is 800x600, yet you say you usually give up because the images are too small?:?

Quote:

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When Derek posts pictures of a new tool I want to see the whole tool and every detail in detail.

---

Try Ctrl+ :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by silentC

Try Ctrl+ :)

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Huh? since when does ctrl+ generate new pixels that are not present in the posted picture?

It doesn't. It's a joke. Lighten up. :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HammaHed

So I have made the decision that I am not going to post any more pictures here

---

ok ...... bye.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big Shed

Aren't you contradicting youself here? Current limit is 800x600, yet you say you usually give up because the images are too small?:?

---

There aren't too many people post 800 x 600 pictures because they can't get them below the 100kb limit. I'd prefer 800 x 600 as the limit rather than 100kb.

You need to add this if you are telling jokes.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...1&d=1244598595

One consideration I didn't spot in all these posts is The Server storage needed for all the large photo's cost of procuring and paying for it. After all it is a FREE Forum and service. Yes the forum does have sponsors
The other consideration is Australia's net speed unlike US and other parts of the world we fair lousy.

Wongo this is a serious discussion :smack:

:Dx1000

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wheelinround

One consideration I didn't spot in all these posts is The Server storage needed for all the large photo's cost of procuring and paying for it.

---

There are close to 100,000 attachments the ave size is only 57KB, well under the limit.

regards

On the instructables site, it's really great.

I just take my pics, upload them as is, and then the site reduces the image for display on the web page, BUT if I want to see the same image in a larger size, all I have to do is click on it - and 2 clicks later I have gone from a small browser friendly "Low Resolution image" up to a fairly large image, and then to the full size original picture.

The really good thing about the Instructables system is that with the 3 tiers of image and file size is that I can put up really great images that have both SIZE and a really high resolution - with is great for FINE detail - especially when doing work down to 1/10 ths of a millimeter.

(You might have to join up to see the images... but anyway.)

As shown here - as the low res image on the web page

http://www.instructables.com/id/A-BR...-avoids-mostl/

To the high resolution image it's self.

http://www.instructables.com/files/o...WMFHY0H93A.jpg

For me as it stands, even fairly pox and basic digital cameras are operating at about 6+ megapixels, and all this dicking around to reduce the image size AND the file size down to these tiny and inconvenient proportions - well it's like dealing with Telstra.... it's not something I want to do any more.

I am not prepared to allocate 1 or 2 hours on any nights to be readjusting a heap of images, especially for this site.

I also really want to see big high resolution images - for the detail they contain.

So I am saying to Neil - perhaps it's time to upgrade this site to using the same or better system that the Intructables crowd is running.

Most people are on broad band, and those who can get it but won't or can't upgrade to even low speed broadband, the Instructables site still caters fairly well for them.

Like long cues at the check out - the servers are bogging down too.......

Quote:

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Originally Posted by silentC

It doesn't. It's a joke. Lighten up. :rolleyes:

---

Sorry - I missed the emoticon. :2tsup:

RE: 100,000 attachments the ave size is only 57KB,
Hummmm . . . that's a total of only 5.7 Gb - I wouldn't consider that a problem for any half decent server to handle - storage space is relatively cheap. I have 15,000 images taking up 17 Gb on my aging (4 year old) lap top (plus about 150 Gb of images on CDs and DVDs) - not quite the same I know. I guess it depends on the marginal cost of web server space which we are not (and neither should we be) privy to.

RE: 6 Megapixel images.
I don't reckon any image need to be bigger than the average screen available at the time. 5 years ago this was 1024 x 768 now we are in the 1280 x 960 or more screen space which is why I reckon 1000 x 1000 is ample - since that will fill most screens (allowing for the usual side border and top menu info).

RE: One consideration I didn't spot in all these posts is The Server storage needed for all the large photo's cost of procuring and paying for it. After all it is a FREE Forum and service. Yes the forum does have sponsors
I agree - given it is a free forum it's excellent value for money!

RE:The other consideration is Australia's net speed unlike US and other parts of the world we fair lousy.
True but I'm not suggesting ANY increase in allowable file size - I'm just asking to stick to the current 100 kb or less but allowing image size to be lifted to 1000 x 1000.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HammaHed

I am not prepared to allocate 1 or 2 hours on any nights to be readjusting a heap of images, especially for this site.

---

Takes me all of 2 seconds in iPhoto to reduce a massive photo down to 600x800 pixels, save it, open it in Photoshop and save for web and 2 seconds later it's ready to upload.

Let's give that 2 minutes all up including getting the shot off the camera.

Then maybe a maximum of 1 minute to upload 10 shots into my thread and I'm done.

:?

I've got a tea cup, anyone have a storm?