Images 'too small'?

[Paul mabbott]

I've had some rejections today noting that minimum dimension is 600 &c ....

is one of them - like my computer, the gallery says it measures 658 x 892? Is something going wrong?

[StuartDH]

Yep, the minimium size if 800x600 so your first dimension (658) is too small

Stu

[Paul mabbott]

But I've posted portrait aspect photos before?
Isn't this just going to put a lot of redundant grass into the picture? If I re-crop to 800x800?
e.g.
- was accepted?

[StuartDH]

we've just upgraded a part of the gallery and it now includes the facility to stop undersized images from being uploaded (so the gallery editors don't have to reject them and then get grief for enforcing the rules). The new upgrade isn't perfect and it sometimes lets some pics through, but the image you've referred to above was uploaded a long time before the upgrade.

[Paul mabbott]

There we go then - I'll avoid attempting to upload pics in portrait format!

[matt_xyz]

Hi Paul,

You can still upload images in portrait format, but when you resize them just make sure that the width is at least 800 pixels. There is no longer an upper image size limit, so it doesn't matter if the resultant height of the image is 1200, 1300, 1400 etc. (although note that we do still have an upper file size of 500kb)

You ask above if this is going to put some redundant grass in the image, but it doesn't need to. If you go back to your original image, crop it as you have above, and then simply resize the crop to 800 pixels wide. You will have exactly the same field of view as in your image above, but the image will be larger.

Matt

[Wild-Woman]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

Hi Paul,

You can still upload images in portrait format, but when you resize them just make sure that the width is at least 800 pixels. There is no longer an upper image size limit, so it doesn't matter if the resultant height of the image is 1200, 1300, 1400 etc. (although note that we do still have an upper file size of 500kb)

You ask above if this is going to put some redundant grass in the image, but it doesn't need to. If you go back to your original image, crop it as you have above, and then simply resize the crop to 800 pixels wide. You will have exactly the same field of view as in your image above, but the image will be larger.

Matt

If you spread out the pixels to make it wider does it effect the quality of the picture Matt? Wish I was more technically minded. Sorry.

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by Wild-Woman

If you spread out the pixels to make it wider does it effect the quality of the picture Matt? Wish I was more technically minded. Sorry.

it should actually make the image higher quality Jules, since we're resizing an image so that it is now made up of 800 pixels (in width) rather than, for example, 600. The 800 pixel image will have a little bit more detail as a result, although this will probably not be noticeable.

Imagine you had to paint a portrait of someone by painting only dots. The more dots you use the more detail the resultant image will have.

Issues relating to resizing, cropping, resolution etc do get a bit confusing at times though, I fully agree

Matt

[Duke of York]

I have to admit I came across this problem last night when I couldn't upload a couple of portrait pictures which I had only sized to 600 pixels wide

It took me a couple of attempts to realise the problem but rather than go to the original picture and resize all I did was increase my upload to 800 pixels wide as I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make a noticable decrease in quality

[DaiTheDragon]

I don’t know the reason for this new size policy as I can’t see any benefit’s to it. By increasing the physical dimensions means that you will be reducing quality as you still have to limit file size in KB unless when you upload an image you use a higher file size. Also people with small monitors or low resolution will have to scroll more to see the image.

Dai

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by DaiTheDragon

I don’t know the reason for this new size policy as I can’t see any benefit’s to it. By increasing the physical dimensions means that you will be reducing quality as you still have to limit file size in KB unless when you upload an image you use a higher file size. Also people with small monitors or low resolution will have to scroll more to see the image.

Dai

images that are 800 pixels wide should still be comfortably within 500kb Dai, if saved at quality level 8 or 9, so there should be no drop in quality because of file size.

Also, a monitor would have to be very small not to fit an image that is 800 pixels wide and this has always been our minimum width for landscape shots so there's no change in that sense.

The reason for this minimum size is that we wanted to automate the upload process so that it automatically rejects images smaller than 800 pixels wide. You simply wouldn't believe how many people uploaded landscape images that were less than 800 despite the clearest of instructions on the upload page (that large bright orange banner!). So it was becoming a real pain manually checking the size of each uploaded image. Unfortunately, the software doesn't allow us to differentiate between landscape and portrait meaning that all images now have to be more than 800 pixels wide.

Matt

[Roy C]

Why 800 x 600 - I shoot 3 x 2 ratio on both my DSLR which means an 800 wide image will be 533 high. How come a 4 x 3 format was chosen?

[StuartDH]

Originally Posted by DaiTheDragon

I don’t know the reason for this new size policy as I can’t see any benefit’s to it. By increasing the physical dimensions means that you will be reducing quality as you still have to limit file size in KB unless when you upload an image you use a higher file size. Also people with small monitors or low resolution will have to scroll more to see the image.

Dai

It's not a new policy, it's been in place since the site began, but now the software can enforce it rather than the editors having to spend time doing it. In the early days there were lots of cameras that could only manage 800x600, but nowadays that's tiny compared to the ability of modern cameras. We've got some pics on the site that are four times these dimenstions, still under 500kb and no noticeable loss in quality. The average screen resolutions are also a lot larger than a few years ago with under 5% at 800x600 and over 50% larger than 1024x768

Originally Posted by Roy C

Why 800 x 600 - I shoot 3 x 2 ratio on both my DSLR which means an 800 wide image will be 533 high. How come a 4 x 3 format was chosen?

The 4:3 ratio (800x600, 1024x768 etc) is the format for a typical PC monitor, and we had to choose something. To keep you current ratio you can simply upload at 900x600, 1200x800 etc

[jennyb]

Originally Posted by StuartDH

The average screen resolutions are also a lot larger than a few years ago with under 5% at 800x600 and over 50% larger than 1024x768

Stu, I would be interested to know where you get those stats from. I work in web development and we find that lots more than 5% are using 800x600. Most people use 1024x768 followed by slightly less at 800x600. I would be interested in a reliable source of good statistics.

Jenny

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by jennyb

Stu, I would be interested to know where you get those stats from. I work in web development and we find that lots more than 5% are using 800x600. Most people use 1024x768 followed by slightly less at 800x600. I would be interested in a reliable source of good statistics.
Jenny

Just to be different - I do use 4x3 but at 1000x750 it's what fits my screen ....

[StuartDH]

Originally Posted by jennyb

Stu, I would be interested to know where you get those stats from. I work in web development and we find that lots more than 5% are using 800x600. Most people use 1024x768 followed by slightly less at 800x600. I would be interested in a reliable source of good statistics.

Jenny

Opentracker and Google analytics. Here's last month's Analytics, which show June with only a bit more than 5% for 800x600, and a bit less than 50% for everything over 1024x768 - but not far off what I remembered they were at the last time I looked:


1024x768 48.02%
1280x1024 20.13%
1280x800 11.06%
800x600 5.75%
1440x900 4.30%
1152x864 2.30%
1680x1050 2.28%
1280x768 1.58%
1600x1200 0.93%
1280x960 0.91%

[StuartDH]

These are the stats for 2007 so far, which shows that 800x600 & 1024x768 have both fallen in the last 6 months

1024x768 50.05%
1280x1024 20.00%
1280x800 8.47%
800x600 7.52%
1440x900 3.19%
1152x864 3.11%
1680x1050 1.63%
1280x768 1.30%
1600x1200 1.13%
1280x960 0.81%

[jennyb]

That's interesting. Thanks. I'm surprised that 800x600 is so low although it does depend on the type of site and the type of visitor.

Jenny

[Barbara]

I hadn't realised that some of my pics may have been undersized when I uploaded to the gallery, apologies to the gallery editors if I caused you extra work in the past.

I always used to resize my images in my software to 800 pixels and the last two pics I have uploaded tells me they are too small so I just resized them to the next size 1024 pixels. I had wondered what was wrong until I saw this thread. 1024 pixels increases my file size but I cannot see any loss in quality by using 1024 pixels.

Barbara

[Paul mabbott]

Would be easier if these were in mathematical order ...

However, I still don't see the problem for the site of having 600x800 rather than 800x600 (or 900x1440 rather than 1440x900 &c &c ). Surely the view ('landscape' or 'portrait') should be determined by the subject? I quite see the problems with landscape photographs (although I can imagine that shots of a gulley or deep chasm would best come out in 'portrait' format?) but surely most plant phots and a lot of other subjects would best be done 'portrait'?

Is this purely a technical thing for the web programme?

Originally Posted by StuartDH

These are the stats for 2007 so far, which shows that 800x600 & 1024x768 have both fallen in the last 6 months

1024x768 50.05%
1280x1024 20.00%
1280x800 8.47%
800x600 7.52%
1440x900 3.19%
1152x864 3.11%
1680x1050 1.63%
1280x768 1.30%
1600x1200 1.13%
1280x960 0.81%

[StuartDH]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

Would be easier if these were in mathematical order ...

However, I still don't see the problem for the site of having 600x800 rather than 800x600 (or 900x1440 rather than 1440x900 &c &c ). Surely the view ('landscape' or 'portrait') should be determined by the subject? I quite see the problems with landscape photographs (although I can imagine that shots of a gulley or deep chasm would best come out in 'portrait' format?) but surely most plant phots and a lot of other subjects would best be done 'portrait'?

Is this purely a technical thing for the web programme?

Looks to me like they are in mathematical order...by percentage of popularity

If we set the software to minimum width of 600 wide then it allow 600x600, which is smaller than we want.

[Boddie]

I am 1440 x 900 and 1024 x 768