digital camera and AV question

[deployedsoldier]

Ok so I finally hit 100 posts yay go me anyways...

The thing I have noticed is, I have to scale pictures down BIG time to get them to go on the boards.

Does the fact that I am using a decent quality digital camera affect the outcome of the size pic I can use?

I ask because I had to crop and resize the shit outta the AV I used just to get it up there and now im not even sure I want to use it cuz its so damn small lol.

Anyways any insight would be great thanks!

 

[Cathleen]

Yay you is right!

Thank you for your bravery to serve our ~ I see your location is Baghdad, I hope you stay safe. Also, welcome to Lit.

Your av is small, it can be 150 x 150. I generally use irfanview.com and cropping isn't necessary.

If you want attach your picture to a post and I'll give it a try.

 

[SweetErika]

It sounds like you're talking about file size, rather than image size.

The dimensions of the image must be 150 by 150 pixels or less - what you have now appears to be smaller than that. So, on the original pic, crop it to only include the part of the image you want to show, then reduce the size down so the largest dimension is 150 pixels. Some pics work better than others for this size; closeups are generally clearer than far shots, like yours, so you may want to do some more cropping to focus in on the body or certain features more.

For the 15.0 KB file size requirement, you'll need to play around with the options that go along with saving the image in your editing software and make sure you're saving the image as either a .jpeg or .gif. Without knowing what editing program you're using, it's difficult to give you specific instructions, but there's usually a slider bar to lower the quality in the Save As... option on a lot of programs.

If you use a common editor like Photoshop, PaintshopPro, Irfanview (free), or GIMP (also free and very similar to photoshop), or otherwise tell us what you're using, we'll be able to give you more specifics on lowering the file size without making the image tiny.

Or, if you post the pic and tell people what you want, I'm sure someone will be happy to do it for you. In fact, there's a whole "Need a pic resized for your AV? Post it here!" thread somewhere in this forum. It's always nice to be self-sufficient when it comes to stuff like this, though!

 

[deployedsoldier]

oh thanks for the link i think i may have it now

 

[deployedsoldier]

crap maybe not..

Im using Photoshop Elements 6.0


heres the pic im trying to use atm, it is resized because the original is 970kb and like 2500 by 1900 on dimensions lol

 

[buxxxom]

Welcome to Lit, and thanks for your service. It's a nice av indeed.

 

[SweetErika]

I used GIMP to crop, resize ("scale image") and save it at 88% of its original quality. Here's the result, at 150 and 13.6 kb:

 

[kindashy]

crap maybe not..

Im using Photoshop Elements 6.0


heres the pic im trying to use atm, it is resized because the original is 970kb and like 2500 by 1900 on dimensions lol

That photo comes up as 800x600 and 84.5 kB.

Use Save for Web feature in the Elements. It is absolutely great.

Here is what I did. I downloaded the photo you posted. I resided it to fit Lit dimensions of 150x150, since the original is 800x600, the Lit dimensions came up as 150x113. Then I used Elements' Save for Web feature to save it as JPEG High Quality which compressed the file to 4.2 kBytes. Bam! We are done. I did not do any cropping. So, if yo want it redone, just crop the large original and PM me, I can then resize it and compress it, and PM final product to you.

 

[deployedsoldier]

Damn you guys rock, thanks for the class I really appreciate it!

 

[PrincessErin]

Sorry to be jumping in - I have a pic thats the right size - how do I add it as my avatar - I can add it to my profile.
Erin

 

[SweetErika]

Sorry to be jumping in - I have a pic thats the right size - how do I add it as my avatar - I can add it to my profile.
Erin

You need at least 100 posts to use the avatar feature.

Welcome, and be sure to check out the FAQs Before Posting sticky at the top of the main How To page. Just about every question on how the forum works is covered in there.

 

[Bengal52]

One method I use for shrinking photos since I do not have the fancy programs, is to use the basic program "Paint." Under "Image" there is "Stretch/Skew" which gives a pop up when clicked. This pop-up has percentages which you can use to shrink a photo down in size. mind you, this takes a lot of trial and error but it doesn't involve getting a new program. Most computers already have Paint and as your shrink the photo, the files shrinks in size.

 

[kindashy]

One method I use for shrinking photos since I do not have the fancy programs, is to use the basic program "Paint." Under "Image" there is "Stretch/Skew" which gives a pop up when clicked. This pop-up has percentages which you can use to shrink a photo down in size. mind you, this takes a lot of trial and error but it doesn't involve getting a new program. Most computers already have Paint and as your shrink the photo, the files shrinks in size.

The new Paint, the one that does jpeg files is pretty nice. I still would use IrFan View though.

 

[Weird Harold]

One method I use for shrinking photos since I do not have the fancy programs, is to use the basic program "Paint." Under "Image" there is "Stretch/Skew" ... this takes a lot of trial and error but it doesn't involve getting a new program.

The problem with using MSPaint's stretch/skew function is that it's basically a "pixel resize" and it takes a LOT of intermediate resizings to get an undistorted/pixilized image when reducing from 2500x1900 megapixel images down to 150x150 avatar sized thumbnails.

Irfanview, GIMP, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, and many other image editors and/or image managment programs have multiple "resampling" algorithms available to completely recompute the image to avoid distortions and pixilation.

Paint can resize many images without distortion, but it doesn't do well with very large changes in size or with images that have a lot of fine detail.