Hello

As much as i like to be part of the Gimp-chat, I believe I have to reduce my visits here just for important questions I have to ask, but nothing more. The reason for this is, that I have a mediocre Internet speed of about 350 kiB/s. This makes the loading of most picture intensive pages a real nightmare. I analysed this page and have found in picture sizes

total graphics, 45 items 7'332.25 kb
real displayed pictures, 7 items 7'025.23 kb, 1'003.60 kb in average, whereof the largest pic has 3'375.3 kb
other graphics, 38 items 307.02 kb, 8.08 in average, inclusive the signatures and avatars
largest single file has 3'375.3 kb, 2'224 x 1828 px, and is a PNG
Measured download time from click of the link, 22.5 seconds

I think this page is a good average of most pages so can be regarded as representative.

The real problem are the oversized pictures, and the fact, that a simple JPG with about 760 px wide for the forum would not only reduce the overall size for the 7 pictures to about 300 to 400 kb each without anybody can see a lower quality on the monitor. The forum software – once all pics are downloaded – scales the pics automatically to 760 pics, which is usually not as good than if each user would scale it himself to this size with Gimp.

Many Gimp forums I am also subscribed to reduce the size maximum to 1000 px wide and to 500 kb.

If there is an absolute need to show the pic larger and in a better quality then the average monitor can display, there is always the possibility to load the extensive picture with a picture hoster and put a link to download. So people with a fast enough connection will not loose much time, but «retarded» people like me with the stone age connection and no real chance to get a better service in the middle future could have a sensible and acceptable download time.

The trouble is that the picture is resized for display but still downloaded in full size.... This said your page is a bit of a pathological case and not so representative of the average page on GC even if agree with you that GC isn't that usable on a slow link.

Other forum software automatically create reasonably sized thumbnails (256px max) for attachments (6-8K) and you have to explicitly click them to download the picture and see it in its full glory. Maybe this is a feature in phpBB3 that just requires to be enabled...

See, that's what I meant when I said I use thumbnails. I was living under the assumption that you only get the small image until you click the thumbnail and then the large one. It was even mentioned to me a long time ago, when I first started posting, thumbnails are supposed to be easier on slow connection/crap graphic cards etc. Use thumbnails for easier loads.

If that's not the case, I apologize, I'll just try and downsize my work and post a special GC Edition of it here in the future.

In terms of uploading to GC, there is a limit of 5MB on attachments and uploaded images. Images can be attached or they can be uploaded via the button. Only images can be uploaded using the upload button. Files and images can be attached.

Due to the extra space required on the server, creating thumbnails (additional smaller images) for every image uploaded is not a feasible approach. If we had unlimited server resources, we could certainly do that. However, we do not have unlimited server resources.

I could limit the size of uploaded images but that won't prevent members from embedding huge images from other image hosting sites, so it won't solve the problem of a member's slow internet connection struggling to display those images.

This is a graphics intensive site and some threads will naturally contain lots of images. However, many threads do not contain large images. We have tried to balance the needs of members who have slower connections with those members who would like to upload and display very large images and files, as well as take into consideration server overhead. I think we have struck an acceptable balance between these competing issues.

If a member's internet connection is just too slow to handle threads containing several large images, I would suggest they use a browser addon, like Image Block, which allows the selective display of images on a webpage.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... age-block/

Would it be better for your server GT if we uploaded pictures elsewhere, and just post links to them here?

We prefer that all images posted here are uploaded directly to GC. That's why we allow up to 5mb per image, which is normally enough space for most images. By not generating unnecessary thumbnails that waste storage space, we ensure there is always plenty of storage available for member's images.

The problem with uploading images to 3rd party sites is that those images tend to disappear, leaving behind a bunch of empty posts and worthless threads on GC. We don't require that members upload images directly to GC, as some sites do. However, if images disappear, the staff has to clean up the mess and remove all of the posts/threads that no longer have useful content. There is nothing worse that locating a good thread on a forum and finding out that all of the relevant images are missing. We want to avoid that here on GC.

I'd recommend using Save For Web or RIOT plugins before uploading to make files smaller in size without losing quality (perceptively).
Also, whenever possible, convert other formats to JPEGs.

Out of my last 5 uploads here 4 images were RIOT optimized jpegs with combined size of 2 MB and 1 png, also 2MB,
although the dimensions of each image was around 1000x1000 px, give or take.
The original size of all 5 images combined (before SFW or RIOT) was 8.6 MB. That's about 56% less?

Thanx GT

I think there's an obvious question to be asked here...

How many people click through on the images posted here to see the bigger version? And then click on the "window-fit" version to see the full sized version?

I'm asking these questions about images posted for enjoyment and NOT about screen captures posted as part of a tutorial, or originals posted for others to make use of.

To answer my own questions - No and No - the images as presented at 760 wide are sufficiently large for me to get all I want from them - regardless of browser implemented re-sizing that may be mangling your creations.

Kevin

Kevin,
if I remember correctly, Gimpchat loads anyhow the full image size and that causes the big time delay on slow internet connection, irrespectively whether you click or not on the image.
GC may correct me if I'm wrong

Yes, we've already established that - my question is "Is it a waste of bandwidth having full sized images that very few people take advantage of?"

Kevin

good question, I didn't understand previously, sorry!

Personally, I always click images that are large enough to be clicked. The lightbox script will then scale the image to the size of your screen (or the max size of the image) . If your screen resolution is too small to display the full image, you can then click the expand button to see the image at actual size.

If Firefox, you can right click and select "view image" to bypass the lightbox script altogether and see the image without any browser zoom, which is something I frequently do, as well. This is because I normally run with my browser zoomed a little and I prefer to see images unzoomed.

The actual size of an image the user sees is directly dependent on the screen resolution they happen to be using. Images appear twice as small to someone who uses 2048px resolution, compared to someone using 1024px resolution. The 780px number was chosen as the default scaling so that users with lower resolution displays (i.e. 1024x768) wouldn't have to scroll left and right to see images.

I use 1440x900 resolution but my display supports 1920x1080, which is still low compared to today's hires monitors, which can easily reach 3840x2160.

Not all images. Only when people recommend to see the larger image & I will with tuts to see them properly. I get my 6's & 8's mixed. So need to see them clearly - I see well enough (with glasses) not to make my font larger yet. Gonna leave that till last resort.

Thanks for this interesting Discussion. I fully agree that only the uploaded pictures are the safeguard against Picture loss. We had that problem a few years ago in another GIMP website, when suddenly a few disappointed members deleted all their contributions coordinated in one night. Result: half of the tutorials were not any longer useful at all.

The solution we found after this is
· pictures with a max width of 100 px and a max load of 100. kb into uploaded into the users album in the forum. These pics are not cropped at all, so for a very few with smaller screens some horizontally scrolling was necessary (in an poll we established that only about 5% of the responding members had monitors smaller than 1000 px. Each content of an album can be manipulated by the user for 1 day, after that there is no possibility for user to change an item.
· larger pictures can be linked to external sources, here are no restrictions at all (except indecencies or too brutal ones).

Since then we have no more problems with the size of pics, the pages load even for me reasonably fast. And I can select, which pic I want to see larger.

By the way, an aspect we have not yet discussed is that the chance someone is stealing the art work if a picture is just so good that it can be seen, but not used and manipulated by downloading, is much lower than if I could just download a 4.9 GB PNG wonderful picture and use it as it pleases me. With the optimised JPG's any manipulation or aspect to print it, would bring really bad results.
And if someone known would like a copy of a picture, I am sure the Artist would not mind to send it when he receives a kind request.

This is a rather different issue, if I don't want people to use the hires version of a picture I just don't put it anywhere on the net. But I hope the systems on which I put images don't alter them arbitrarily, especially on a site where we want to discuss the finer points of said images.