Yet again: Image Sizes

[careysb]

To the people who don't see a need for the medium size at all, I might mention a use. In the forums, it is recommended that you not post large or original size images because the appearance of many such images in a forum thread tends to bring the bandwidth to a crawl. Forum etiquette suggests that you post a medium size photo with a link to whatever size you would prefer people to see your photo in.[/quote]

[andrys]

...
I see no advantage in having the "medium" size at all, for example.

You might not be checking your stats via a 3rd party counter
that will tell you whether people are on slow modems or not and/or from
countries where there is still not much fast internet access.

For one thing I can see people in some countries trying to load
some of my images over and over again because they take a long
time on a slow modem. I have targeted fast internet users, but
if I know someone is coming in on slow modem, I sure quickly tell
them to click below the first image, on MEDIUM, so they don't have
to wait so long to see pics of interest. MANY in the United States
also have no fast internet into their non-urban areas.

I'm with you on using less compression but also it seems they're
not sharpening back on simple downsizes.

Since they're loathe to tell GUESTS that their notes in our
GUESTbooks will vanish into a black hole, I'm not encouraged
by the lack of evidence re their caring about guests at all
(or about lost feedback to us with bad feelings from guests as
a result).

[goislands]

...
I see no advantage in having the "medium" size at all, for example.

You might not be checking your stats via a 3rd party counter
that will tell you whether people are on slow modems or not and/or from
countries where there is still not much fast internet access.

Not really... How do I do that? Just out of curiosity.

Anyway, let me make my point again, that Slug has this technology already. See http://www.pbase.com/slug/image/25971/
In this gallery is a size called "5". In many of his galleries you might find different sets of supported sizes.

Thus I suspect, that all what we need is an interface for us, users. I would think of the following possibility here:

Specify a list of sizes, each having a settable name and a scaling criterion, such as "shorter side=NNN" or "longer side=NNN" or some more clever criterion, like Megapixels, what would allow to autoscale 2/3 and 4/5 ratio images accordingly. I tend to do this "manually" and make my originals 2/3 with max. short=750 pixels, whereas 4/5 have max. long=1060 pixels. This keeps both sizes at virtually the same number of pixels. Add also "compression quality factor," what might be the number used my (say) Picture Magic. This could answer the objections of people who complain about to aggressive compression of auto generated images. Everybody could make some local tests with Picure Magic or Irfanview to see the tradeoff size versus quality. Example:

Code: Select all

[Small   long<=800  q=80]
[Medium  long<=1024  q=80]


In which case the user would have Small, Medium and Original. Compression quality is 80, and the longer edge sizes are 800 and 1024 accordingly.

PS:
I understand your objection toward Medium. We sometimes forget that internet develop at a different pace is some parts of the world. Here I have whopping "up to" 22Mbytes/sec download speed. Even DSL is a crawl to me. I drop my office screen 1600x1200 via VPN and do browsing without even seeing too much of a slowdown.. But in fact I see than screen of a computer being miles aways from my home. 1280x1024 screen is considered "smallest in use" in this vicinity.

[andrys]

You might not be checking your stats via a 3rd party counter
that will tell you whether people are on slow modems or not and/or from
countries where there is still not much fast internet access.

Not really... How do I do that? Just out of curiosity.

Do a forum search on 'statcounter' -- actually, there's a big
statcounter thread in Q&A...

PS:
I understand your objection toward Medium.

Was this last thought being addressed to me? I am FOR
"Medium" for the souls who are lost in slowland and there are
tons of them.

Also, if you're sharing your photos with the world, you might
want the majority of users to be able to see your image AT ALL
in its entirety. The average screen is still 1024x768 and that
will not even show all of a 1024x768 photo because space is needed
for program words also.

Anyway, do we size and speed to suit only our own situations
(fast and larger screen-space) or to make sure most people get
a doable situation, seeing your whole picture and not too slowly.

I have myself given up on concern over slow-modem users EXCEPT
that if I know them I ask them to click on "Medium" under the first
larg image and then all subsequent images will be shown in Medium
format, which is good for a slow modem.

It's be nice if pbase could sense speed of transmission and do
that as a default, but if not, it'd be nice if there were default settings
a user or we could control. NOT an easy thing actually.

[andrys]

Okay, guys.

In the last week or so, when I browse images on people's galleries,
their original sizes are now showing up even when I don't ever click
on "Original."

Are others finding this? Some people have wanted that for some
time, so that if they uploaded 1024x768 or larger, people would see
that by default instead of being sent to the pbase-compressed
'large' image that is never quite sharp enough.

The larger size SEEMS to default now. Or, is it only my computer?

Any other experiences on this?

[dang]

Andrys,
I believe this is the way it's always worked for me. If your images are 800 pixels max, then you've probably preselected original. So if browsing someones gallery which posts larger sizes, you'll get their original regardless if it's a full 8 mp file. Click on large, go back to a gallery posting 800 pixel max again, it seems to reset to original since there's no large to view. But, try browsing with medium instead, and see if it doesn't stay the same. At least that's how it seems to me.

[andrys]

Andrys,
I believe this is the way it's always worked for me. If your images are 800 pixels max, then you've probably preselected original. So if browsing someones gallery which posts larger sizes, you'll get their original regardless if it's a full 8 mp file. Click on large, go back to a gallery posting 800 pixel max again, it seems to reset to original since there's no large to view. But, try browsing with medium instead, and see if it doesn't stay the same. At least that's how it seems to me.

I meant I have logged out a lot. I do that to test.

Later on when I come on, I haven't changed anything and I never
ever choose "Original" -- I just start browsing and as you can see from
my Favorites gallery I am often just browsing to see others' amazing
work.

I used to default to their 'large' images.

Lately I always come upon their original-sized ones instead. That's
been for a week or 10 days or so.

[dang]

Andrys,
Don't hold me to it, because I've been wrong many times before...
But, did you clean your cookies before checking? Maybe there's been some type change though, it's always a guess until we're told.

[goislands]

You might not be checking your stats via a 3rd party counter
that will tell you whether people are on slow modems or not and/or from
countries where there is still not much fast internet access.

Not really... How do I do that? Just out of curiosity.

Do a forum search on 'statcounter' -- actually, there's a big
statcounter thread in Q&A...

PS:
I understand your objection toward Medium.

Was this last thought being addressed to me? I am FOR
"Medium" for the souls who are lost in slowland and there are
tons of them.
[...]

Yes it was addressed to you!
Sorry for not have been clear enough in this. I fully understand that you prefer to keep the "medium" size images because of the existing dial-in connections in many countries. Should we ever get a full control over set of image sizes and compression, I guess everybody will have to make a tough choice which sizes to chose, based on expected or targeted type of viewers.

We who live in an area like the Silicon Valley sometimes forget how fast all changes here. Nothing is big enough or fast enough. Many web pages are so IO intensive that they are practically rendered useless for all but fast dedicated line. And: The Terabit connection is coming. Optical relay devices are already in test use, everything will become a fiberglass connection.

Thomas