Image Uploading Limits

I do a lot of work with images, and I find the limits to image size on the forum unrealistic. I find that below a certain size, it takes a huge reduction in size or jpeg quality to get below the 100 kb threshold. I've tried using the optimizer, and it often makes my images even larger, so I have to reduce jpeg quality even more, and when I get it below 100 kb, often when it appears in the upload window, it is suddenly over 100 kb. It would be much easier and less exasperating - and more useful - if the size limit were 200 kb. In today's world of massive memory, surely that can't be a problem. It's such an important amenity on this forum, it needs to be more user-friendly. Even eBay now uses much larger image files.

100 KB is far from unrealistic, in fact, its more than enough.

Here's the obverse and reverse in an image under 100kb and you can see every detail. It's 535px × 1,080px and is 92KB. Stamps don't require a quarter of what this coin image does.



I keep a log of all attempted uploads and members try to upload over 30 2+ MB images every day. Just silly. 30 minutes to learn any of the free software programs such as irfranview is all it takes.

Concerning eBay, they have the luxury of deleting images after six months, we do not because it will render topics useless.

Stray Feathers - One of the keys to make it a bit easier is to first resize your image width to around 500px. 99% of the time just sizing down the width to that with make your images the right size.

Another alternative is to use a service like Photobucket. It's a pretty slick setup - You can just set your preferences, and drag and drop the images in. Then each image will have a link in BB code that you can copy and paste.

Eric

I keep the optimized images right next to the original hires scans, with pretty much the same file name.

Selecting the wrong one during the upload is gonna happen, now & again.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I have lots of good photo software apps. I do size them to 500 pixels or less per side - still too big. I set the resolution to 72 dpi - still too big. In order to get them below 100 kb, I have to set the jpeg quality to 15% or less. What is frustrating too is that I can start with a larger image at, say, 150 kb, then reduce it in size by half, and it gets it down to 125 kb, then in half again, it's down to 115 kb. The optimizer works but is misleading. I put an image into it and it produced another that was larger than mine, at jpeg quality of 80%, which is far too large for the site. I finally had to move the quality down to 15% to get it to fit. That seems to be the key - get the jpeg quality near the bottom. So why not set the optimizer to do that?

Sorry man, but that's hogwash. I own 30 websites and optimize images every day for almost four hours and what you're saying just isn't true unless you're using terrible software. I could not possibly turn out the image above if what your saying was true. I mean seriously, it's 535px × 1,080px and 92KB with incredible detail. A stamp would be easily 75% easier to do.

Stray Feathers,

If you have Photoshop or other professional photo software, look for the "save for web" feature.

For the record, I use Aperture, ACDSee, Photoshop Elements, Pixelmator, Nikon Capture NX2 and others - all highly regarded. Here is the last image I posted. It is 400 x 461 pixels and I had to save it at jpeg quality 15% to get it below 100 kb - it's 87.6 kb:

Try Photoshop Elements save for web feature. Functionally, it's the same one I use in Photoshop, and I've rarely had issues getting the file size down without sacrificing quality.

Then you're doing something wrong. Period. I do this a hundred times a day with Macromedia Fireworks. 15% is ABSOLUTELY absurd for an image that size to be under 100KB.

Completely. Here is an image, originally scanned at 2400 dpi. I uploaded to the Free Image Optimizer, and adjusted the default width to 600 pixels. At an image quality of 80, it was sized to 131kb, which was too big to upload. I played with the image quality until I got down to 65, which gave me an image size of 97kb. Here it is:



I then rescanned at 1500 pixels wide, 90 image quality, and zoomed into the top section. (I wanted to see the marks in the "S".) This was still an image 605 pixels wide at 90 image quality, and it only took up 62 kb.



So, sorry, but I don't understand why it isn't working on your system.

Partime, thanks for taking the time to look into this. I have retried the scan (originally at 800 dpi in this case) in several apps. In Elements the resized image showed below 100 kb - good. But in my Finder it was suddenly about 130. A version done in Capture NX2 was larger to begin with, smaller by the time it got to the Finder. Interestingly, "save for web" in Elements produced a larger file than doing it manually. I was able to get the Optimizer to work better. I must have caught it on a bad day because one version was just under 100 kb at 15%. My initial comment was meant to suggest that a slightly larger limit would allow more flexibility and avoid splitting hairs over 100 kb or 101 (or whatever the threshold is.) In my view it would be an improvement in user-friendliness on the site - not a criticism, just a suggestion.

Stray Feathers. Yes, it would be nice to increase the file size, but I bet the forum operators will tell you that this is not feasible for one reason or another. I'm just glad the Free Image Optimizer can handle a 10MB version now. I scan at 2400dpi, but I bet it will work just as well with 1200 or even 600 dpi. And, when I reduce the image quality, I really don't see any difference until I'm below 50. So, usually no problem.

Keep practicing, and be sure to trim out all the questionable and black/white area, if necessary. Good luck.

I use offsite image hosting as it offers the quality and doesn't affect the forum so much.
Flickr for example give you 1tb of storage now for free and to place an image link is easy once you've done it a few times.
There have been a couple of tutorials in the past which may be worth searching out if the image resizing is not suitable.