Original Posted By: Clif Dawson
Folks,I love the neat pictures that get posted here, but there's no reason at allto post a 1+ megabyte JPG or GIF file here! That's why so many folks havecomplained about this new feature. If you don't have broadband internetaccess, 1MB is a big hit to the download time, and it's a big waste of harddrive space no matter how you're connected.JPEG files have a quality setting built in (it has to do with how much theimage is compressed - the more compression, the more data you lose in theimage.) But believe it or not, you're quite unlikely to see any significantdifference between "full quality" (10) and "low quality" (3) unless you'reprinting it out on a photo-quality printer or you're zooming way in andgreatly enlarging a little piece of it. However, the "low quality" versionof an image is a tiny fraction of the size of the full-size, full-resolutionfile.An 800x600 size JPG photo can easily be 50K or less at a lower qualitysetting, while 60% quality or greater can easily push it well into themegabyte range. 99.5% of all viewers can't see any difference between them.Virtually all digital cameras and scanners can record images at lowerquality, that's the easy way to do it... set it to record the image at alower quality (or, take photos at the highest quality setting that keepsfiles under 100KB or so.) Or better yet, take photos or scan things at ahigh quality setting, but reduce the file's quality for emailing. Prettymuch all photo-editing software that can handle JPG files can do a "Save As"which will ask you specify the quality level as well. Quality 3 or 4 (out of10) is plenty good for nearly all uses except full-color magazinepublishing. My favorite program for this is called EyeBatch (it's not tooexpensive, available at http://www.atalasoft.com/ ) which will let youcreate scripts to re-size the physical dimensions AND the quality of one orany number of images at a time. This is nice for saving hi-res photos fromthe digicam, while creating smaller (under 75KB) versions at 800x600 thatare safe for emailing and posting on webpages. (If any EyeBatch users wantmy scripts for this kind of stuff just lemme know...)Sorry for the rant, but there has been a lot of needlessly huge (butotherwise interesting) files posted lately. Keep the good photos coming!-MikeMike Whaley merlin@ov-10bronco.netWebmaster, OV-10 Bronco Associationhttp://www.ov-10bronco.net/___________________ ... ______Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 23:08:26 -0800