Avatar size question

[JamesKelsey]

ARRRRR!!!!!

I know photoshop fairly well but for the LIFE of me, cannot figure out how to create an 80 x 80 pixel image that is UNDER 6k in size. The best I can do is 16k. Any helpful hints?

Thanks,
James

[Caultron]

I know photoshop fairly well but for the LIFE of me, cannot figure out how to create an 80 x 80 pixel image that is UNDER 6k in size. The best I can do is 16k. Any helpful hints?

What file format?

[Fred in Skirts]

ARRRRR!!!!! I know photoshop fairly well but for the LIFE of me, cannot figure out how to create an 80 x 80 pixel image that is UNDER 6k in size. The best I can do is 16k. Any helpful hints? Thanks, James

If you are using JPEG format you can decrease the file size by lowering the resolution of the image. Reduce the size to 80X80 and then reduce the resolution until it will work as your avatar. if the picture you are using is very fine res it will not hurt the smaller image to do this.

Fred

[crfriend]

I know photoshop fairly well but for the LIFE of me, cannot figure out how to create an 80 x 80 pixel image that is UNDER 6k in size. The best I can do is 16k. Any helpful hints?

Recall what the display is going to look like and adjust one's expectations to it.

For starters, make sure the pixel-count in both the X and Y axes is at (or below) the pixel-count in the target display. Off the top of my head, I forget what the target is for avatars, but 80x80 sounds like a plausible dimension. Pinning it to the maximum usually results in the best results, so start there and only reduce if everything else becomes hopeless.

Then recall what's going to actually be visually discernible to the average human at that size. The inference here is that at that small a size, one almost never needs to save in a JPEG "maximum quality" mode; 5 or 6 out of 10 is usually more than enough.

Sometimes it's not possible to compress a JPEG that much; I've seen it happen. At that point, convert the image into one of the many colour-indexed models available (PNG and GIF come to mind) and use a reduced palette if the need arises. That'll almost certainly get the image small enough to be reasonable.

Recall, too, that all an avatar is is a visual mnemonic that you use to represent you. It does not have to be a high-res head-shot with perfect lighting; it doesn't even have to be you (look at mine). If an artist formerly known as Prince can represent himself with an unpronounceable symbol then we can as well.

[Couya]

Realizing that I had no avatar pic, I tried to upload one; a small section of a larger photo, reduced to 80x80, Jpeg, lowest resolution, but hardware or software would not let me go lower than 9KB.

Martin

[crfriend]

OK, I finally got off my not-so-fat backside and took a look at the avatar settings -- and found the size somehow got limited to 6,144 octets. I've upped that to 32,768 (32k) in an attempt to make things better.

Gripe here -- or to me in person -- if it's not any better.

[JamesKelsey]

I know photoshop fairly well but for the LIFE of me, cannot figure out how to create an 80 x 80 pixel image that is UNDER 6k in size. The best I can do is 16k. Any helpful hints?

What file format?

Hm... jpg. I didn't think of that... is there a better format?

[JamesKelsey]

OK, I finally got off my not-so-fat backside and took a look at the avatar settings -- and found the size somehow got limited to 6,144 octets. I've upped that to 32,768 (32k) in an attempt to make things better.

Gripe here -- or to me in person -- if it's not any better.

THANK YOU SIR! I think 32k will help many people add avatars. I'll play woth it as soon as I can get to my desktop with my images.

James

[JamesKelsey]

PERFECT! 32k allows an image to simply be resized to 80 x 80 without any more fiddling.

My guess is the 6k reflected the age when this site (or program) was created... when Storage was Expensive (and ICQ and Yahoo Messenger were used)

Yours,

James

[crfriend]

My guess is the 6k reflected the age when this site (or program) was created... when Storage was Expensive (and ICQ and Yahoo Messenger were used)

I'm not sure what the precise genesis of the number was, but it's not a new setting by any means as it shows up in some very old copies of the database backups.

In any event, we now can have big fat 32kB avatars. (I think I was likely the last one of us here on a dial-up connection -- and that was several years ago. I move slowly and with consideration. Less than polite folks call me a dinosaur; I ignore them.)

I see we have another sailor!

[Tor]

The other less obvious source of unreduceable size in jpgs is metadata. I've seen a the stripping of metadata from a 160x240 jpg go from 84k to 18k just by stripping metadata.

If you have exiftool, the command "exiftool -all= $image" will strip the metadata. If you can find it, most image editing programs should have an option somewhere to not save metadata.

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

Hello Carl,

Thank you for taking the effort to increase the Avatar size.

As James thought, I will now be able to upload an Avatar.

Btw, what's the feasibility of increasing the allowable size of uploaded pics? I find I have to go to a fair amount of work to get my photos down to that size as well,

[skirtyscot]

There's plenty of software that will reduce your photo file sizes. I use Photobucket - when uploading a photo to there you can simply choose what size you want it reduced to - and then link to here. This also lets me delete a photo from here after the time limit for editing posts, by deleting the pic from Photobucket or merely moving it to a different album there. (I haven't done it yet: although a few of the early shots on my photos thread now make me cringe, I am nobly leaving them up to show new skirt wearers what not to do!)

[Couya]

Thank you, Carl. Avatar loading is far easier now.

Martin