Ozbow

Hi Mick.

Mick Smith wrote:You mention above that we are limited here at Ozbow to photos that have a maximum of 1000 pixels across the top, in a landscape type shot. I resized my altered photos to these dimensions, but they weren't allowed, as they were too big. I've struck this many times before. In fact, to post my photos of the Lilydale shoot I had to reduce the number of pixels across to 500 before they were accepted. The result is a photo that looks miserably small in comparison to other photos I've seen on Ozbow.

Is there something I'm doing wrong. On the 'post a reply' Ozbow screen, I arrow down to the 'upload attachment' part of the screen. Where it says 'Filename' I hit the 'Browse' button and then I select the photo I want from my computer. The trouble is, it won't accept anything with more than 500 pixels across. Obviously I must be doing something wrong, as I've seen numerous large photos on Ozbow in the past. It seems a pity to go to all the effort of improving my photos when it's all negated by only being able to post up tiny images.

Here is an image that is 540x56 Pixels and it is only 25kb so the Forum will accept it.
BTW That is a test image for SRGB and screens. You should see 16 steps of monochrome if your screen brightness is good.

If you go greater, I think, than 200kB the forum will reject the file as being too large. If you go greater, I think, than 1000 pixel in any dimension the forum will reject the file as being too large.

For General Users of the Forum. The settings in the forum software limit the size image you can have. Thus you need to restrict images in both dimensions and file size. (All that was true back some time ago when I held Admin privileges. Since then the site has been moved and there are new people with Admin privileges so that may have changed. Ask them for a clarification on current image sizes.)

Hi Mick, yet again.

GrahameA wrote:I would have cropped it differently.

980 pixels across and 54kB. I had to enlarge it to get it that big and it did not come back smoothly as I did it quick.

The attachment mick.jpg is no longer available

Going backwards with re-sizing is a difficult process and you will always lose some image definition.

I cropped it like that as I was only interested in a couple of things. The Archer, the Target and the impression of depth and IMO that does that better. The colours appear a bit "richer" as I increased the saturation - it looks as if it was shot using Kodachrome. (Welcome back to the 60's.) I could have adjusted it differently so that it looked more like Velvia. And if we had the capability and a suitable subject it could have be shot with 3 different exposures and the combined to produce a HDR image - but we are getting a bit ahead of things.

What could be done was that the area around the target could have been lightened/improved so as to make things easier/clearer to see. (It is called a Digital Darkroom as it it the equivalent of the old Chemical Darkroom. Learning how to adjust images is not a 5 minute process however, if you want good 'technical' images it can be worthwhile.

A change of tack.

This is crop. I did all the work in Canon Digital Photo Professional - the software that came with my camera. I did the stuff with it to demonstrate that the software that comes with the cameras is often very powerful and does not have a large price tag attached. I compressed the file size in the application otherwise it would have been around 300kB and rejected by the forum.
Prediction for this week. This topic has all the hallmarks or a long post as people talk about how/why/with what they do things.

Hi Mick.

This is part of the 'Masterclass in:- What makes a good trad shoot photo.'

This is an uncropped resized version of the original image.
Note: I chose this because has some sharp angles and edges.

The original was a RAW file and converted to a TIF image it was 3000 pixels across and around a 75MB file (there is no compression with TIF files).

I then cropped the image I wanted (which was small), enlarged it, ran a filter across it to remove some of noise, ran a blending/smoothing filter across it, ran an unsharp filter/mask across it, boosted the colour saturation and finally added some borders. Then I saved it as a JPEG with some compression to get the file size down and "Shazam" an image suitable for OzBow.
And just as example of what you can do to get file size down the image above is 68kB

A bit more compression and the size drop to 35kB.
File size is not so important nowadays as people have lots of storage and transfer speed are relatively fast. However, if you are paying heaps for downloads or on the end of a slow dial-up connection you will despise people who put up large files when there is no need.

The advantage of good optics and minimal in-camera processing is that you can do things like the above.

Fellas, please check this thread out: http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=15077

Mick Smith wrote:I've gone right down to 600 x 617 in pixels, which is quite small, yet it comes up with "The file is too big, maximum allowed size is 200 Kib.".

Now I'm beginning to understand why people don't post their photos of shoots on Ozbow anymore. It's too difficult.

Mick,

Your post above alerted me to the 200kb image limit. I had the settings for images set to more than that so I knew there was a problem. Being Admin I am not limited to any size limits so didn't know of this limit placed on members. I logged in as a regular member and came up with the same problem as you. This led to some hours of searching and some phone calls before Mark finally stumbled onto the cause. The result is a happy medium I think.

Many forums limit images to smaller sizes than the above and also don't allow photos to be uploaded directly from your computer to the site - you must use a photo hosting site. Considering this I don't think the members of Ozbow are really limited too much when it comes to posting photos.

In regards to your file size being too big; you will have to find an editing program that allows you to compress your files when you save them. I have been using a Mac for over three years so I am not up to date with what programs come with a Windows computer now days but I would have thought there would be one. The program Mark has put the link to is a good free program which should be of a help to you.

Lastly a warning to everyone. When you are going to use a photo for posting on the site I strongly suggest you make a duplicate of it before you do any editing or resizing. I say this because you don't want to make changes and then accidentally hit the save button and loose your original file. If this happened after you had resized the photo for the web it would no longer be any good if you wished to have it printed.

Jeff

Here are 2 images with old and new limits.
All that was done was scaled the image down from over 4000 pixels wide to 1024.
Then when saving the 200Kb image had 66% compression, the 350 kb image only had 88%.
All done in GIMP in about a minute.
I tend not to do many other changes to images in software as I like the art of getting it right from the start.

I know I need to find a better subject next time, for the sample.

I'm trying to take all of this in, but my head hurts.

Like many things, it appears you can make photography as simple as you like, or you can make it as complicated as you like. I can definitely see the appeal in learning a lot more about it, but I think I will just have to progress at my own lumbering pace.

Regardless of the technical side of things, the composition of a good photo is something we should all strive for, as it just requires an eye for symmetry, balance and aesthetics.

Hi Mick.

Mick Smith wrote:Regardless of the technical side of things, the composition of a good photo is something we should all strive for, as it just requires an eye for symmetry, balance and aesthetics.

Not really.

There are a bundle of 'Rules' that go with photo/graphic composition - e.g. The Rule of Thirds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds. What people would be advised to do is learn the Rules of Composition - and once they have an idea of how they work then they can learn how to 'break' them and get a good result.

The base issue is people want to do things instantly - like hitting the target - unfortunately it takes some time to understand and be able to apply it - like hitting the target repeatedly.

GrahameA wrote: Here is an image that is 540x56 Pixels and it is only 25kb so the Forum will accept it.

BTW That is a test image for SRGB and screens. You should see 16 steps of monochrome if your screen brightness is good.

Grahame, I can count 18 steps of monochrome in the image. Daryl.

greybeard wrote:Grahame, I can count 18 steps of monochrome in the image.

Me too!

Jeff

Morning Daryl and Jeff.

greybeard wrote:Grahame, I can count 18 steps of monochrome in the image.

Correct.