Edisto Vacation

[shaneb]

Your cheese platter looks brilliant John. I wish I was off enjoying the sunny warm weather. Have a cheese from me.

Shane

[Boofer]

dumb down the pictures before posting!

I'd like to put a request in to all picture posters to post reasonably-sized pics that are also not too small. Any pic smaller than 640x480 will not offer the best possible viewing of the masterful cheese craftsmanship that the poster is attempting to convey. 

-Boofer-

[awakephd]

I second Boofer's request!

Something to keep in mind: reducing resolution is not necessarily the best way to reduce the file size. If you are dealing with .jpg files -- which is far and away the most common format that I see on this and other forums -- you may make a more dramatic difference in file size by adjusting the quality* setting rather than the resolution. As an example, I took John's 600x400 picture of Edisto, posted above, and saved it at 70% quality. (The original was, I am guessing, saved at around 90-95% quality -- that is typical for digital cameras.) The file size dropped from 123K to 51K ... and I can't tell the difference!

I typically convert my pictures for posting to 1024x768, 60-80% quality. This gives me file sizes under 100K, but plenty of resolution for zooming in on details. (And of course, if need be, I still have the full-resolution, full-quality picture that I can post or refer to.)

*What is the "quality" setting on a .jpg file? It has to do with the fact that .jpg uses a "lossy" compression scheme -- even at high quality settings, it does not store the exact bit map of pixels from the original picture. (To get that, you would need to set your camera to the "raw" setting, if available.) Instead, .jpg stores information that lets it re-create the picture. At very low quality settings (<50%), the re-creation gets pretty fuzzy, but it takes up very little room to store; at very high quality settings (>90%), the re-creation is excellent, very, very close to the original; it takes a lot more room, but still a whole lot less than actually storing each and every pixel. In the middle, you get a very good re-creation with relatively small file size -- a perfect compromise for uploading pictures to the internet.

[awakephd]

Here's a bit more illustration of the effects of quality settings on a .jpg file.

I have attached 5 pictures of some camembert. The picture began as a 4272 x 2848 resolution picture, high quality setting, requiring about 3.8M to store. If this had been saved in "raw" format, it would have required at least 4272 * 2848 * 3 = 36.5M to store, so even at a high-quality setting, the .jpg "lossy compression" has made a dramatic difference in file size.

All of the pictures below were converted to 1024 x 768 resolution (actually, 1024 x 683 to preserve the aspect ratio), but with different quality settings. Notice how dramatically the file size drops off just by changing from 99% quality to 95% quality to 80% quality -- but it is nearly impossible to tell any difference between the first two, and very hard to see much difference with the third. But when you drop to 50% quality, or 20% quality, you begin to see "artifacts" from the re-creation process. (Look especially at the "blockiness" of the background and the edges of the cheese.)

I usually find the "sweet spot" between good quality and small file size to be somewhere between 60-80% quality, but keep in mind that the file size also is affected by what's in the picture -- a lot of variation of color and detail in the picture requires more information to recreate, while a picture that is more uniform requires much less.

By the way ... my apologies to John for hijacking this thread, and to any and all who already know this stuff, far better than I do!

[John@PC]

Here's a bit more illustration of the effects of quality settings on a .jpg file.

Thanks Andy.  Personally I like your first cheese picture best because of the fine texture and paste.  The second one looks like it's very earthy and flavorful.  The third one.., wait, they're all the same cheese?!  Nevamind .  No hijacking here because the topic (pic posting problems) is worthy of discussion.  A cheese for you Andy for your cheese tray minus the tray .

[Boofer]

Nice job, Andy.

I initially just scanned the pics...hey, waitaminit...wtf? What's going on here?

RTFM...oh, diff resolutions. Well, that makes sense then.

-Boofer-

[awakephd]

Actually, same resolution each time ... different quality settings (i.e., amount of compression).

[Boofer]

Yes, of course, diff compressions.    That's what I meant.   Shrinkage.

-Boofer-

[John@PC]

That's what I meant.   Shrinkage.
-Boofer-

Not to be confused with Castanza SHRINKAGE .

[Boofer]

Brrr! 

-Boofer-