Regarding Posting Images - Quick 405th Survey

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Chernobyl

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Hi all.

I've been working, on and off, on a short, easily-digested guide for posting on the 405th, that should explain in more detail some of the forum etiquette we expect of our members. One of the things I've run into which I'd like to get some feedback on is the posting of images on the 405th, particularly in regards to file size and resolution.

There are two main reasons as to why I'm trying to work this issue along:

Firstly, full-sized images are a pain to look at. I use a fairly large monitor myself, and I still find that a great deal of images posted by our members fill up my screen and are difficult to see. This issue will most likely be compounded for our members with smaller screens - simply put, images that fill up the screen and require scrolling to view properly should, ideally,be resized for easier viewing.
Secondly: larger images load more slowly. In the age of broadband Internet, this isn't such an issue for desktop and laptop users who connect via a broadband/fibre home line, some of our users browse on poor connections and mobile devices while out and about, often on data allowance plans (I still remember with great fondness my first Internet plan, with a monthly allowance of one whole gigabyte). Larger images eat up these allowances, which cripples the experience for those users.

Therefore, I would like to invite the community to discuss this issue, and to possibly suggest an ideal image resolution of around 960x540, JPG format - half the size of a reasonably common 22" household monitor. I do realise that this issue may be subjective to each user's own screen setup, but the courtesy extended to the community at large would be a great benefit.

I'd also like to remind users that is is encouraged to use the 'Manage Attachments' tool in the expanded Reply editor - this allows users to add up to ten files as an attachment rather than hosting images off-site, and images are generated as clickable thumbnails as opposed to large, full-sized images.

Again, I'd like to hear what the community thinks of the proposals, and if there are any further ideas, I'd love to hear them!
 
good Idea!
I shoot for 800*600 as its a common ratio .normal size . It fits Really well If you run a non wide XGA display ( 1024*768)
This also works with 720P ( 1280*720) screens too.

Peter
 
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Keep in mind that the forum is being upgraded and that may or may not resolve issues. My suggestion is to keep the conversation going, however we'll table any fixes until the move is made. My understanding is that we're pretty close to making that move now. Art Andrews has been hard at work on it.
 
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Just out of curiousity, the images that I have been posting are they ok? I personally believe they are ok, but I've also seen other photos posted by members that seems to be zoomed in, and blown up. Guess everyone has a preference. Just throwing it out there I definitely do not enjoy clicking on thumbnails to view the photos.
 
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There are a couple of other forums that have an automatic picture shrink to fit the visible text area with the option to click the image to view it full scale.

This doesn't really mean much to me, though. I typically shrink images to 800 pixels at the widest/tallest.
 
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Keep in mind that the forum is being upgraded and that may or may not resolve issues.

I had considered that solution, yes, but this discussion is more weighted towards those members out there that use off-site hosting to present their images. Without any site plugins to auto-resize images to a more easily-viewable state, images are presented at full scale - which, with most cameras nowadays (even cellphone cameras), is quite large. My cellphone natively takes images at 2592x1952 - resolutions of that scale can potentially have the effect of breaking the page layout. I've attached some images below to emphasise my point, with some adorable dog thrown in for your amusement - both images are of the same resolution given to the default real estate given to a user's post (1371x995, dependant upon the size of a user's screen).

It's fairly clear to see that a resized image sits a lot better on the page.

Just out of curiousity, the images that I have been posting are they ok? I personally believe they are ok, but I've also seen other photos posted by members that seems to be zoomed in, and blown up. Guess everyone has a preference. Just throwing it out there I definitely do not enjoy clicking on thumbnails to view the photos.

If your images are viewable in the screen as-is without the need to scroll, then they're alright. I just checked your generic resolution - 1024x768 is absolutely fine for desktop viewing, and with a file size of <500Kb, it's also not going to be taxing on loading.

Honestly speaking, attaching your images rather than image-linking in the main body of your text does a lot better for the ease of reading and formatting within your post - I realise that it's not to everybody's preference, but I'd still encourage users to attach rather than image-link from off-site, to give members the option of loading up your images rather than force-loading them.

There are a couple of other forums that have an automatic picture shrink to fit the visible text area with the option to click the image to view it full scale.

This doesn't really mean much to me, though. I typically shrink images to 800 pixels at the widest/tallest.

I do hope that the 405th implements some form of automatic image shrinking, in order to mitigate some of the issues I mentioned above.
 

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  • default page area plus resized image.jpg
    default page area plus resized image.jpg
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  • fullsize load issue.jpg
    fullsize load issue.jpg
    376.4 KB · Views: 363
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Honestly speaking, attaching your images rather than image-linking in the main body of your text does a lot better for the ease of reading and formatting within your post - I realise that it's not to everybody's preference, but I'd still encourage users to attach rather than image-link from off-site, to give members the option of loading up your images rather than force-loading them.

I was going to say. I've always used the "Insert Image" button on the text window when I go to add an image. The strange thing is that no matter where the image source came from, either it be an downloaded image from Facebook (Avg. file size: 2048x1365) or an image directly from my camera (Avg. size 4608x3456) it seems to automatically shrink it down to fit on the page in a small window box. I guess a follow up question I have then is this: Are you mainly referring to the large images that appear big on screen with the text, or do you also consider the images that appear in the small boxes but are huge when you open the file to be a nuisance as well?
 
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The strange thing is that no matter where the image source came from... it seems to automatically shrink it down to fit on the page in a small window box.

That's the point, yes. Attaching files via the 'Manage Attachments' tool generates all involved images as a thumbnail as opposed to the full image - these thumbnails are generated at (I believe) a maximum resolution of 180x180, no larger than 100Kb in size.

Are you mainly referring to the large images that appear big on screen with the text, or do you also consider the images that appear in the small boxes but are huge when you open the file to be a nuisance as well?

I'm referring mainly to users who insert their images from off-site, using hosts such as Photobucket and Imgur - off-site images are always displayed at their maximum resolution, which creates a more intense workload for users when they load the page up.

Ten attached images is infinitely better than ten off-site images. With the loading up of full-sized images being entirely optional in this state, page loading is much faster and doesn't have a detrimental effect to any users trying to view posts on mobile devices. Put simply: ten thumbnails at ~100kb or so each is a lot easier to digest than ten large images at ~1Mb or so.
 
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I have a few pics on here that are hosted off site that Ive yet to * bag and tag * .
( add my name watermark and crop to make better use of the space .)

One is for Eg a pic of my rockets and I . Its about 140 kb and is 533x800.
However a thumb I checked was 7 kb! . That opens a 500 kB image .


If a thumb on the site is size X ( about 150 pix on a side ) with lets say a 10 kB file that the initial load sees .
I wonder if the coding on the plugin lets you mod it to be 3X with a tad more data.

Somewhere in the 300 on side range. So that one can tile them 2 across on a small er screen
Or have one on the side and have text wrap......For a description or side note .
Kinda like this
http://www.405th.com/showthread.php?t=44801&p=737597&viewfull=1#post737597


just some more food for thought.


Peter
 
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