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Mercy, please!
http://w-ww.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=12272		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Alan Carruth [ Thu May 31, 2007 8:53 am ]
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I'd like to ask folks to keep in mind that there are those of us who don't have, or can't get, high speed connections. This is the only web site I go to that commonly times out on me, and it's a real drag to have to wait ten minutes or more for photos to download. Photoshop and, I believe, Elements, both have utilities that will cut the size of those files down without seriously imparing the quality, and allow those of us less fortunate to enjoy this fine site a lot more.

Thanks
Author:  Shane Neifer [ Thu May 31, 2007 9:07 am ]
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I'm with Al on this. I too live on dial-up.....the price I pay for no wow's of the big city! I often check things out at work but the security features there will not show photobucket and others, so if it isn't loaded into the thread with tree/arrow icon, I often won't see it. This is really my problem but like Al I won't get the pleasure of seeing your fine work or being able to add comment, not that I really have much to add typically anyway!.

Shane
Author:  WaddyThomson [ Thu May 31, 2007 9:08 am ]
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Google also has a product called Picasa2 which is free and can reduce size by exporting.  There is also an editing program called Gimp 2 that is downloadable and free. Picasa2 is particularly easy to use, and can do excellent editing to photographs for light, focus, color, etc.  Nice little program for nothing.
Author:  Kevin Gallagher [ Thu May 31, 2007 9:31 am ]
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   Yeah, if you'll drop the resolution of the photos to 72 dpi and then post
them within the size parameters required by the forum photo post tool,
they will fly up for a lower bandwidth connection....well, at least compared
to a larger image.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars
Author:  Kim [ Thu May 31, 2007 10:20 am ]
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Another benefit of resizing is that all the text in a thread will remain in view to be read without the need for members to scroll back and forth to read what has been submitted by others.

Or, to put it another way, I hate that! When some numb skull goes and post a HUGE image...I especially hate it in a long thread cause now, every man and his dog who reads that thread is gonna need to scroll left and right, left and right, left and right, back and forth, back and forth to read what the rest of the OLFer's have posted from that point on! Sheesh!! all because of 1 great big stink'in image that won't fit on your screen anyhow! For cry'in out loud! Cut it out will ya!.

Did I mention that I find realy large images to be a tad annoying?

Cheers

Kim
Author:  JimWomack [ Thu May 31, 2007 10:30 am ]
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Yup, I feel your pain. I live in the country too. No dsl, no wireless, just a slow (30k) dialup connection. The irony is that I work in the software biz. I generally haul my laptop into town to take advantage of all the wireless hotspots when I need to move large files. A lot of forums limit uploads to 50-70k. It sure does help.
Author:  PaulB [ Thu May 31, 2007 10:36 am ]
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You can resize pictures in the "paint" program that comes with windows. You don't need to go out and get some special program just to resize.

Open image in paint, select the 'image' pulldown menu, select "stretch/skew". Then reduce the image in both axes to 50% or whatever. Takes a few seconds.

And Kim is right large images are annoying. Remember to hit enter after each pic upload so that they don't all show up on the same line.
Author:  KiwiCraig [ Thu May 31, 2007 11:16 am ]
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I'm with you too Alan !

1, I'm from down under
2, I live in the bush
3, Got the worst dial up in the world
4, Got to pedal to make the thing work
5, My computer has valves
6, Have to give the thing a dang good flogging to get it cranked up.
7, I don't exaggerate ,,,,,,,,,,much


Seriously though, I have noticed that since we regained our pic uploading facility , the maximim is now 200 kb , where it used to be 150 . This can't help much.

Have to get me one of them wide screens.


U Tube?,,,,,,,,,,U Forget it !

Back to the peddlin'

Cheers, Craig
Author:  Anthony Z [ Thu May 31, 2007 12:08 pm ]
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Well being a very recent offender...I'll take extra care in the future. I naively reduce my pics to between 100 kb and 150 kb and never considered that I have to reduce the width as well.

I wish someone would have said something sooner. Of if said, sorry I missed it.
Author:  davidmor [ Thu May 31, 2007 12:50 pm ]
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I feel your pain!  I moved from the city where I had cable to the country where I had nothing but dialup, and really slow dialup at that!  After 5 years of dealing with painfully slow internet use, I finally got motivated to start being the squeeky wheel until the cable company finally caved in and ran lines to my road.  It took a lot of letter writing to the town officials, cable muckedy mucks, attorney general, public utilities commission, politicians, ect. as well as a ton of phone calls climbing the food chain at the cable company.  I finally found a sympathetic ear who helped me through the petition process as well as a town official who put pressure on them using the cable franchise agreement as leverage.  It took a while, and a lot of work but we finally have 10mbit broadband on our road. 

It was fun having all my neighbors tell me I was wasting my time that we would never get cable out here, and then have them come up to my house a year later, eat their words, and thank me for all the work.

All this to say that I remember those dialup days.  I think about what it was like when people posted huge pictures that I had to download at 28kb speeds when I am sizing mine for upload.  Like Hesh, I always size mine at 800x600 to start and re-size them to fit the screen in the preview before hitting the post button.
Author:  Sam Price [ Thu May 31, 2007 5:39 pm ]
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I am stunned that there are still people in the US with dialup!

There are a few stalwarts in the UK who pay $40 for the priveledge of a dial-up connection when they could have 5mb broadband for the same price, but I really feel for everyone who cannot get broadband.

Unfortunately people with power and prestige in this country get their way. In our case it was fortunate, because the local "lord" (there is STILL some semblance of a feudal system here!!!) in our area petitioned British Telecom to set him up with Broadband, which in turn, benefitted the rest of the community.

Author:  KiwiCraig [ Thu May 31, 2007 7:25 pm ]
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WOW ! Thanks Sam ! Your've given me a great idea.


Best regards , Lord Craig
Author:  Colin S [ Thu May 31, 2007 8:02 pm ]
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Wow Alan like Sam I'm amazed that the US is not fully covered with Broadband! I live in a small little rural village in the UK and get 8Mb broadband for $25 a month.

I normally post Pics at 800x640 but did post some much larger ones the other day by mistake (picked them from my general photo folder rather than the reduced size OLF one) I immediately realised my mistake, but couldn't go back in and edit them because we are no longer trusted with an edit button. So, sorry if this caused any of those with a steam driven system hassle.

Colin
Author:  robertD [ Thu May 31, 2007 8:29 pm ]
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Mercy?

Mercy, you ask?

I am not worthy!

It is I, who should ask mercy of thee!

For I am Newbe, from the land of “First Guitar Buildingdom”

Much to learn have I, in the realm of pic posts! However, I shall not falter in my quest to reduce
pic pixels, and I shall revel in the resizing of all future pic posts!

From this day forward, I vow, I will only Post Properly Pixelated Pics!

Alan, not trying to make light of your topic, just having a little fun. Hope I didn’t offend!

To be real, I guess I’m an offender too! Never really meant to post such large pics. And, I have to
agree with Kim. I hated that scrolling back and forth thing too! And, I was the one who caused it!
After that, I did start doing what Hesh has suggested. Although, I think the last time I held it to
1000 pixels. Next time I post a pic, I will hold it to 700.

Be merry! Life is fun!

Robert
Author:  letseatpaste [ Thu May 31, 2007 9:36 pm ]
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I'm pretty sure you can get plugins for Internet Explorer or Firefox that will allow you to control which images will display/download... i.e. You could tell it not to display images over 50k unless you right click on it and tell it to show it. I don't know specific program names, but I'm sure they're out there. It seems like it'd be a handy thing for a dial-up user to have.
Author:  Todd Rose [ Thu May 31, 2007 9:54 pm ]
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The US is a BIG country. Rural areas can be MUCH farther away from any population center than any rural areas in England, for example, can possibly be, and much less densely populated as well. The vast majority of truly rural areas in the US can only get dial-up (except by satellite, which is expensive, and, as I understand it, unreliable). I am one of the millions of rural US citizens stuck with dial-up, and I add my plea to Alan's.

Sure love living in the country, though, and wouldn't trade it for anything!
Author:  burbank [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:27 am ]
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Bandwidth inflation, you could say. How quickly we forget the pain of dialup when downloading images! It was only two years ago that I got cable access; you'd think I'd have been more mindful of those with low-speed access.

Another thing we can do is to crop our shots to minimize wasted areas around the subject. Framing so that the subject fills a more or less rectangular space helps here too.


I found this image that Waddy posted on another thread. It's 640 x 480 and only 36 KB. Good on ya', Waddy!


On the other hand, one that I had on the same thread is only 533 x 400, but the file size is 72 KB, about twice as large file-size-wise, with no significant difference in quality to my feeble eyes.



Hesh has a great example above (guitar's not too shabby either!).

Larger image files also increase OLF server storage requirements, if I'm not mistaken.

So, if you can, reduce resolution, shoot tight, crop, post smaller pics. We want to keep all our dialup users happy, eh? Especially Alan!



Author:  WaddyThomson [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:35 am ]
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Sanctuary Much!  I try harder.  Me thinks I read somewhere that reduced sizes were the preferred post.  Could it have been in the OLF "Read this First" posting>? Hmmm! I just couldn't say.
Author:  Wade Sylvester [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 3:43 am ]
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I sympathize with Alan on the image issue.
I understand the need to wow our fellow LFOr’s with nice images of our creations but I think (to a degree) that’s what web sites are for.
I know not all of us have web sites but if you want to show details, maybe try cropping the part to show and keep it on the smaller side out of consideration for our dial-up folks.(thanks Pat for pointing this out as well)
Maybe consider what size is necessary to get your point across.
For the sake of discussions here, I believe we could all reduce the size of images and still maintain an understanding of what we are trying to communicate.
Great pics BTW!

Wade
Author:  Alan Carruth [ Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:07 am ]
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Thanks, guys; nice to know I'm not alone. One of these times I have to figure out how to upload pics to this forum, so I can get back at you all....;)
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