Portfolio function - need input on image sizes etc.

**Pontemonti** · June 5th, 2005, 08:39 AM

Hey everyone...

The portfolio function is slowly getting closer to being done. But before it is put online I would like some input so that it's done (somewhat) properly from start.

What I'm wondering now is how you would like it to handle the images. I'll try to explain...

The gallery script that we're using for this function automatically saves a thumbnail and a (resized if too big) large image when you upload an image. We can also specify if we want to save the original uploaded file (if the large version needs to be smaller) or not.
We have set the thumbnails to be max 250 pixels in whichever direction is largest. I doubt this size will be changed.
We can specify a max width and a max height for the large images, which seems like a good idea (setting it to max 800 pixels wide or so should prevent us from having to scroll horizontally when viewing certain large images)
We can also set what quality the thumbnails should be (normal JPEG stuff, 100 being the best and 0 the worst)
Same thing applies for the large/original image - note that it seems to use the same setting for both, so if you upload an image and the quality isn't set to 100, it will apply the quality to the image, which may make it look worse.

I can understand if this is a lot to digest at once...but hang on, we're getting somewhere now

Right now it's set up so that everyone gets 1MB space to upload images. This may still change...in fact, it may be less than that at the start, as we don't really know how many people will upload stuff. Note that you can of course delete an image if you're running out of space and want to upload a new one.

I'd like to know what settings you think would be best. Should the original file be saved, even though it will use more space (ranging from not-very-much-more to much-much-more, depending on how big the images are and in what quality they are saved)? Or is a max width of 800 pixels ok? And what about quality? Something like 80% for both thumbnails and large/original images?

To get a better idea of what the settings do, I ran a very small test using my awesome photo of Yes from Sweden Rock Festival a couple of years ago. Note that the total size does not include the thumbnails as the script doesn't seem to count them.

Code:

Test 1.
Thumbnail size:         250px
Thumbnail quality:      100%
Large image max width:  600px
                height: 600px
Large image quality:    100%
Save original file:     On

Result:
Thumbnail:    250x188px,  41kB
Large image:  600x450px, 202kB
Original:    1280x960px, 419kB
                         -----
Total                    621kB

------------------------------

Test 2.
Thumbnail size:         250px
Thumbnail quality:      75%    <-- changed
Large image max width:  600px
                height: 600px
Large image quality:    75%    <-- changed
Save original file:     On

Result:
Thumbnail:    250x188px,   8kB
Large image:  600x450px,  29kB
Original:    1280x960px, 119kB
                         -----
Total                    149kB

------------------------------

Test 3.
Thumbnail size:         250px
Thumbnail quality:      75%
Large image max width:  800px  <-- changed
                height: 800px  <-- changed
Large image quality:    75%
Save original file:     Off    <-- changed

Result:
Thumbnail:    250x188px,   8kB
Large image:  800x600px,  46kB
Original:    1280x960px, 419kB <-- not saved this time
                         -----
Total                     46kB

------------------------------

Test 4.
Thumbnail size:         250px
Thumbnail quality:      80%    <-- changed
Large image max width:  800px
                height: 800px
Large image quality:    100%   <-- changed
Save original file:     Off

Result:
Thumbnail:    250x188px,   9kB
Large image:  800x600px, 348kB
Original:    1280x960px, 419kB <-- not saved this time
                         -----
Total                    348kB

------------------------------

Test 5.*
Thumbnail size:         250px
Thumbnail quality:      75%    <-- changed
Large image max width:  600px  <-- changed
                height: 600px  <-- changed
Large image quality:    75%    <-- changed
Save original file:     On     <-- changed

Result:
Thumbnail:    250x188px,   8kB
Large image:  400x300px,  44kB
Original:     400x300px,  44kB <-- not saved this time
                         -----
Total                     44kB

* = Test 5 - Note that the original image was saved directly this time - it didn't modify the quality in any way.

Thanks for your help

**USER777** · June 5th, 2005, 08:52 AM

i didnt quite understand everything you said, but i guess 800 px width is okay for the full sized images. how much portfolio space does every member have from the beginning?

**Pontemonti** · June 5th, 2005, 09:03 AM

Originally Posted by Lim

how much portfolio space does every member have from the beginning?

Originally Posted by Pontemonti

Right now it's set up so that everyone gets 1MB space to upload images.

**Fipse** · June 5th, 2005, 09:45 AM

I think this should work and I´m in for a size of about 800x800 pixels for the complete picture. Wasn´t there some kind of plan to make the space available (or the number of pctures) dependant on forum activity, professionalism and so on? 1 MB (ca. 15 - 20 pics) is quite a lot for a decent gallery and so I think this is fine, too.

I´m not really sure about the question of resolution. I think that personally I´ve got quite a good grip on compressions etc. and wouldn´t want a program to mess with it. Most of my pics for the web are saved with a quality setting of about 40% that gives mostly a decent quality by comparatively small size. What would your gallery function do to such an image?

Keep up the good work!

Fipse

**Pontemonti** · June 5th, 2005, 10:41 AM

Good questions, Fipse!

I performed some additional tests...using 800 as max width, not saving the original image.

If I resize my image to be 800x600 (at Very High quality in Photoshop it is 78.3kB and looks pretty good, to compare with what is to come) and upload it, the gallery script doesn't do anything about the quality, regardless of how large (talking about bits/bytes here - not pixels) the file is...

But if I resize my image to be 880x660 and upload it, the gallery will of course resize the image, and try to "optimize" it at the same time. This is where the large/original image quality comes in.
I first saved the image at quality 60 (High) in Photoshop, which resulted in a 94.3kB large file. I set the gallery's quality to 60 and uploaded - it resized the image to 800x600, 33.7kB, which looked pretty ugly IMHO.
So, I changed the gallery's quality setting to -1, which means that it should keep the current quality (whatever that is - it can't know the quality setting I used to save the image, so it's probably just guessing). Uploaded and got a 800x600 image, 45.4kB, which looks a little bit better than the previous, but not much.
I then changed the quality to 100 and uploaded again. Got a 800x600, 289kB file, which perhaps looked a little bit better than my 800x600 reference image, thanks to the resizing algorithm's blur function.
I saved a new 880x660 image, this time with 100% quality in Photoshop...and I set the gallery quality back to -1. Uploaded, got a 800x600 image, 44.9kB, which perhaps was slightly better than the previous image with quality -1.
Also uploaded this image, and the one at quality 60%, with gallery quality set to 80, resulting in a 52.6kB and a 53.2kB file, respectively. These looked okay. It's hard to compare with the -1 setting...heh

To sum this up, it seems that setting the quality to -1 or somewhere around 80 is good when resizing to 800. If you want better quality than what this setting offers you can always resize the image "manually" and upload it, as it won't do anything about images which are already "small" enough.

I hope this wasn't too confusing.

**Dan.v.D.** · June 5th, 2005, 11:21 AM

i´d vote for 100% quality (aka no php tweaking of the file xept for thumb generation) so i can decide between uploading 3-4 good looking images or 36 webcam puppy shots myself.
and yes it was quite confusing for a simple problem. how about simply forbidding to upload anything bigger than 800px? i mean anybody claiming to be able to paint/draw whatever an image should also be able to resize an image in photoshop.

**Dan.v.D.** · June 5th, 2005, 11:25 AM

Test 6
Thumbnail size: 250px
Thumbnail quality: 100%
Large image max width: 800px
height: 800px
Large image quality: 100%
Save original file: off
Result: up to me and my preferences

**Fipse** · June 5th, 2005, 11:45 AM

O.k. when I understood it right the picture won´t be changed automatically by uploading it when I put it in the right size (meaning max. 800x800)? This would be fine for me - and as Dan said, people using digital picture processing should know about size reduction ...

Fipse

**Pontemonti** · June 5th, 2005, 12:34 PM

Yeah, image won't be changed as long as you keep it within the max width/height settings (800 pixels wide sounds good to me, but what do you think about height? should it be the same, or more, or less?).

Dan - keeping the quality at 100% sounds like a good idea...as you said, if you know what you're doing you can resize the image yourself to be able to upload more good-looking images

**Dan.v.D.** · June 5th, 2005, 12:42 PM

i'd say 800x800 max. if you allow more height propably enviroment guys will complain and if you allow more width you'll end up havin char artists bitch all the time.
800x800 seems to be neutral.

**look** · June 5th, 2005, 04:02 PM

800x800 is good, maybe provide an extra option to allow artist to link it to the super full size image on their own host if they want to? I've seen a few works that should be viewed above that dimention, but I think a remote linking to the full piece should be sufficient.

1MB is plentyful for storage. and would require artists to do careful planning instead of upload every scrap up.

**Odds** · June 5th, 2005, 04:19 PM

I think Test 3 is probably the best. Who knows, though?

**Prehistoric** · June 5th, 2005, 04:33 PM

Ponti-

i think it's amazing that you guys are even offering this.

i mean, there are over 23 thousand members now! that's one hell of a big server. but kudos to you for doing what it is you do. your work around here is greatly appreciated, even if most of us don't understand what the hell you do!

ps - love your new myspace pic! we need more shots of you pondering over a glass of wine

**Rkhon** · June 5th, 2005, 04:39 PM

I agree, that 800x800 sounds fair. And also think that being able to provide a self-hosted link to a super-sized version of the image would be cool too.

I really can't wait for this. I got myself a domain and host, but I'm just horrible at programming, and cpanel. This provides an alternative I can use with pride, unlike deviantart.

**Pontemonti** · June 5th, 2005, 05:50 PM

Thanks for the help everyone!

That's a cool idea...linking to a bigger image. But it requires rewriting the gallery script a bit...which may or may not be a good idea. In any case, it won't make it into this first version.

Originally Posted by Prehistoric

ps - love your new myspace pic! we need more shots of you pondering over a glass of wine

thanks zack

send me wine and you'll get more pics!

**GriNGo** · June 5th, 2005, 10:05 PM

23000 members - 1meg each - equals 1 small 25 gig hard drive. not too big i think

And how much active members do you think there are prehistoric? 10000 at the most and if you know your Photoshop, 1 meg is more than enough too put a significant amount of your best stuff (10-15 images), which in my case, wont come in a looong time. It's a portafolio service, after all.

About the size, setting a maximum of 800x800 pixels dimension will be enough I think. I dont know how the system will be behave, but remember that not everyone will post same width and height images. Just a concern of mine. About the image compression, I'd vote for High 80% to Maximum quality (100%) In jpeg compression, the difference wont be very noticable. And those kb's that the slightly lower compression will save (lets say 10kb per image) will just come in handy for those who want to put that extract image in their portfolio account.

about the dude that bashed deviantart... YOU SUCK. deviantart's system is by far the most complex portfolio system I have every seen, better than gfxartist's and as I can see, better than this system. If the CA.org guys can beat it, then I'll be amazed. And remember. deviantart has no puny 1 meg limit to all your stuff.

later,
GRiNGoLoCO

**Pontemonti** · June 6th, 2005, 04:38 AM

This is not meant to be a deviantart replacement.
We have two RAIDed 10000 RPM 75 GB SCSI disks on the server, so there's only 75 GB space...and we're using more than half of it already.
If you can pay for a real file server (as many gigs as possible...heh), with lots of bandwidth, then we can offer a whole lot more. But that's not really what this is for. With good free stuff comes lots of leechers...people who don't use the forums but only the free space provided. We don't want that to happen.

**GriNGo** · June 6th, 2005, 10:00 AM

I couldn't agree with you more Pontemonti. Really.

**Fipse** · June 6th, 2005, 12:23 PM

Hi POntemonti,

the plans for the online gallery seem o.k. for me. Maybe it´s possible to save space and hinder people to use CA as an imagehost by adding a tool that closes the gallery when someone hasn´t posted for maybe about 3 month ... I´m not sure if the programming is possible but that would maybe give a chance to keep the traffic a bit down.

Hope I made myself understandable ...

Fipse