 Virginia Kickle |
Sizing for upload to Better Photo I have noticed that my images loaded to Better Photo do not appear sharp. What settings should I be using when I export them from Lightroom?
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chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
Speaking from my own experience, after I make all my edits in my full-size file, I make another file just for my BP upload. In my BP file, I re-size it down to 800 pixels on the long edge (sometimes adding additional sharpening at this stage, if the image needs it.) That is the file I then use to upload (never the full-size file) and I've never encountered a perceived softening when I view the uploaded image.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke  Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
That is a great procedure, Chris. I will tell you that I recommend trying it at 1600 px on the long end. Please, if you have chance, try that out and let me know if it works well for you. The 1600 will come in very handy in the near future. Thanks,
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Hi Jim, I do the same as Chris; always resize to 800. That's because I thought the BP process would take any uploaded image greater than 800 pixels, and downsize them to 800 for display. For example, if I upload an image at 1600 x 1066, the BP process would downsize to 800 x 533. Rather than having the BP process downsize, we just do it ourselves, sharpen, then upload. Your comment about "1600 will come in very handy in the near future". Reading between the lines, I'm hoping you're saying that soon, BP will allow for the display of images up to 1600 pixels. That would be super! I've seen many great pano shots that lose impact, because of the 800 pixel limitation. Thanks for chiming in on the forum. Great dialogue!
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink... wonderful things are in the works :)
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Excellent! Thanks, Jim!
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- Nikki McDonald Contact Nikki McDonald Nikki McDonald's Gallery |
I know BP images are right click protected, but of course there is no way any site can protect against screen captures. Is a screen capture of an image that was resized to 1600 on the long side any more or less vulnerable to being "borrowed" and used without permission than one that was resized to 800 on the long side?
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chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
You'd get a screenshot with 4x the pixels... so someone looking to use/print your images without your consent, from a screengrab, has more data to play with now. ie, an 800x533 display today, could become a 1600 x 1066 display, if this is one of the new features coming at BP... The 800 grab would yield (at assumed 300dpi printing) 2.6" x 1.8" print. The 1600 grab would yield a 5.3" x 3.5" print. Of course, printing those on a lower-than-300 dpi printer one could end up with potentially even larger, workable print sizes. I'd guess that if we get to an enhancement allowing say, 1600 pixel display, then many folks will probably want to expand their use of watermark signatures, and run them through the center of the image.
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Monnie Ryan |
My rule of thumb has been to upload photos at 900 on the long side (and about half that on Facebook) simply because should they be "stolen" the best anybody could get would be a 4 x 6 print, if that. Just for grins I just captured a friend's photo from today (which I've already deleted, of course) that shows at 875 x 579. I resized it to twice that and I'm able to get a decent-sized print. Imagine how good it would be if I'd been able to download it at 1600. Think I'll stick with smaller sizing here just to be on the safe side.
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- Usman M. Bajwa Contact Usman M. Bajwa Usman M. Bajwa's Gallery |
I also do the same as Chris and Ken explained above, Virginia. I have a question .... will be actual size we see on our monitors will be any different than what we see now? If the size doubles, lets just assume, does it mean we have to scroll each entry to see the complete image, which sometimes is tedious to do and takes the fun out of seeing the image as a whole! UB.
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Usman, when I first joined BP in 2005, we could display images in their full resolution. Or at least up to 2000 pixels, because I have some that large in my gallery. But the thumbnail was the same size as today, 210 pixels on the large side. So, I don't think BP will change the default size of the thumbnails.
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- Usman M. Bajwa Contact Usman M. Bajwa Usman M. Bajwa's Gallery |
Sorry for not being very clear, Ken. But my query was actually relating to the full blown image itself and not the thumbnail. UB.
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Usman, I don't know. I guess we'll just have to see, if/when BP makes the size change. I don't recall it being a big deal when I first joined.
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Virginia Kickle |
I haven't seen resolution mentioned. Should it be 72 ppi?
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- Gregory LaGrange Contact Gregory LaGrange Gregory LaGrange's Gallery |
Usman, if the display size is 1600, if you have a wide format monitor than it should fit.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Hi awesome BetterPhoto members, The largest images on display will likely be around 1000 px on the long end. The decision as to how much you do to protect images is up to you. I can only tell you want I do... I size my images to 1600px in case we ever develop the functionality that would allow me to print my images (on paper or in books or on coffee mugs, etc)... or sell such images. I doubt BetterPhoto will do the latter but it may do the former. If you are concerned about image sizes being so big that thieves will steal your photos, you may opt to downsize the image to 800px on the long end before uploading (or whatever size you want). The choice is totally up to you. And yes, Virginia, I still change my image resolution to 72ppi before rechecking the resize checkbox and then set the width or height to what I prefer. In Photoshop, you can use the Fit Image automation (or a few other methods) to get this done while you're making yourself a cup of tea. Usman, I'm thinking about making the image thumbnails on the gallery index pages a little bigger. I'm talking about pages like: http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynoGall2.php?catID=296&cn=Cute-Babies-and-Baby-Pictures The overall width is now something like 940px and it might get to be around 1240px. However, the wonderful news is that, with modern programming, the images will automatically downsize to fit the width of your display. Ken, for you this means that you'll want to use the highest resolution display and have it full screen, if you want to see as much of those amazing panorama photos as you can. You will use the scroll to move down a page but not to the right. The other nice thing about this is that the site is going to look and function much better on iPads, mobile devices, your new Apple watch :) etc. Thanks!
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Virginia Kickle |
Thank you for all the information. My questions were answered! Virginia
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- Usman M. Bajwa Contact Usman M. Bajwa Usman M. Bajwa's Gallery |
Thanks Jim for the notes. Much appreciated ;) UB.
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- Carolyn M. Fletcher Contact Carolyn M. Fletcher Carolyn M. Fletcher's Gallery |
I, too, use the 800 on the long side for my uploads, in the Tiff format. I know they will change to Jpg, but they just look better in Tiff, to me. Maybe Jim could weigh in on the Tiff/Jpg thing?
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
I would actually love to hear from each of you on this. I myself upload high-quality JPEGs and am very satisfied with the quality and the upload speed is good. But TIFF has worked well for me too. Reader, what do you do? :) Any other tips for optimal image quality, anyone?
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- Nikki McDonald Contact Nikki McDonald Nikki McDonald's Gallery |
Highlighted Comment: I have been fine with mine. I convert tiffs to jpgs when I resize. I resize to 800 on the long side, 72 dpi, in FastStone Image Viewer (free download). Then I sharpen slightly (FS, too). And finally I save as jpg. So as far as I know, the BP software does nothing to my images when I upload.
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Highlighted Comment: Jim, I remember the tips BP gave several years ago...resize to 800 on long side, sharpen, saturate a tad, and convert to TIF. But I have done experiments comparing images uploaded as TIF and JPG, and can't discern a difference. But years ago, I could. Or maybe it was my imagination. And I've done experiments uploading an image at 800 pixels and comparing to another image uploaded at 1600 pixels (arbitrary size), and downsized to 800 by BP process. The downsized image was a little degraded visually which I think was the main reason someone at BP recommended that we resize to 800 and sharpen before uploading. I do look forward to the option of viewing images at a larger pixel count.
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chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
800px TIF upload here; although I've never once paid any mind to whatever the DPI setting is. It has no real bearing on web-displayed files; whether you save as 800 pixels wide (at 300dpi), or 800 pixels wide (at 72dpi) or 800 pixels wide (at 10,000dpi), your file still has just 800 pixels across, and that is what will display online. (Try opening a file, resize it to 800 however you normally would, and save it as a TIF. Then go change just the DPI value to a totally different value (with "resample = off") and save it as a differently-named TIF again... the 2 files are both 800 pixels wide, and the same MB in size.)
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Yeah, Ken... JPEGs have become much better than they were in the old days. That's why they might be just as good as TIFF now. Worth a try for anyone who likes testing things out. And you are totally right, Chris. I just change that ppi to 72 out of mindless habit. :) It's not really necessary if you are always looking at your image dimensions in the units of pixels (which I always do because I rarely print anymore). We have such a wonderful BP right around the corner. I am going to see how much the team can get done on it this weekend. Cra-crack (the sound of whipping). Have a great weekend.
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- Nikki McDonald Contact Nikki McDonald Nikki McDonald's Gallery |
Ignorance speaking here and I probably should be embarrassed to be asking, but doesn't reducing to 72 dpi make it harder to get a good or larger print from a screen shot should one be inclined to do that?
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chrisbudny.com - Chris Budny Contact Chris Budny Chris Budny's Gallery |
Highlighted Comment: Nope. The DPI value within your file is completely ignored by all web browsers displaying your file. Assuming your gallery had 800 pixel-wide images on display, any screen grab will always produce an 800 pixel-wide result. The screen grab has no 'knowledge' of what you put into the file (DPI setting) when you first uploaded it to BP.
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- Martha R. Mazon Contact Martha R. Mazon Martha R. Mazon's Gallery |
I hope one of the changes being implemented will be elimination of whatever saturation changes the upload process currently applies. Today I often detect stronger yellows after upload. I attempt to reduce the saturation of yellows in my image before upload, but it's hard to get a good color match this way. :)
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- Sheri Camarda Contact Sheri Camarda Sheri Camarda's Gallery |
Okay, what are the exact sizes etc. do you want for the photo contest? I have been out of the new changes for about 15 months due to an aorta dissection. Everything has changed.
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Sheri, I don't think there's an exact answer. The BP process will automatically resize your uploaded image to 800 pixels on the large size, unless it's smaller than 800 pixels when you upload it. You can easily test this out by uploading an image at 800 pixels...call it "test 1" and do another at 1600 pixels, call it "test 2", then call up both in separate browsers and you'll see they're the same size. You can also check the quality. Years ago, we had similar discussion on the size issue. Many of us resize our images to 800 pixels, save as TIF, and sharpen a tad. Give it a shot. And you can always test it out by uploading to BP.
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- Sheri Camarda Contact Sheri Camarda Sheri Camarda's Gallery |
Okay, thank you. I understand if we dont get the size of the photo just right we wont get a "Editors Pick". So, I want to get it right. Thanks will give it a try.
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- Ken Smith Contact Ken Smith Ken Smith's Gallery |
Sheri..no, not at all. The uploaded image size has nothing to do with whether an image will be considered for an EP or not. I'm simply saying that BP's process will auto-reduce the size of your image, if you upload one that's larger than 800 pixels. And some folks have felt this auto-reduction degrades quality. It's hard to say and at most subtle, or perhaps even imaginary. But many of us are just in the habit of resizing to 800 pixels before we upload to BP. So, please don't think an EP is based on the uploaded photo size. It's the quality of the photo that is most important.
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