Images attachment sizes reminder

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exxos
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Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by exxos »

Just as a general reminder about file sizes, in particular images. I am perfectly happy people to upload large file sizes with large resolutions if absolutely necessary. If people want to archive software/schematics etc here then by all means continue to do so.

But please note that I do not have unlimited hosting space and some people may not be aware that if 100 images are uploaded at 20MB sizes, thats 2GB of space gone. My server runs a SSD drive so space is somewhat sacrificed for speed. I did not want to go down the road of having massive storage capabilities which runs at a snail's pace.

In general forum images are limited to 800px across (on screen), and I myself limit high resolution shots that I upload to 1600px.. Generally image sizes are then below 1MB easily. For a lot of posts is perfectly fine. Most can be around 200-500K easily.

For shots which really do need high resolutions, and I recommend this, particularly things like motherboard images which do need good resolutions then please continue to do that.

Please also note that large file sizes do take a long time in posts to display on the forum in particular on mobile devices. It is not a good experience for readers to have to wait 30 seconds or more for a page to load because of multiple large image sizes.

Also please do not go in the extreme and compress every image down to 100K either. The Internet is full of bad resolution images and this does not make a nice experience either.

Please also do not link images or file attachments to external sites either. I know some people have done this because I have mentioned about file sizes before. But this is also pretty bad, as in a few months time those images will vanish from a third party sites, and we end up with a forum full of missing images which is of no help to anyone.

I'm not trying to send anyone into a panic over this, but please try and be little bit more economical with image sizes/resolutions, There is no point in wasting space and bandwidth on 10-20MB+ images when a 1MB images/resolution will be perfectly fine. :) thanks :)


This is also in mentioned in the forum rules.

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/app.php/rules#rule-1l


As a side note, people have offered space etc for hosting previously. So thanks to those people. I can upgrade my hosting package to include more space, I have no problems with moving to a larger package. We are not going to one day run out of space and then the forum crashes or anything like that. I will move to better package long before that day happens.

Nobody is going to get into trouble over this or anything like that, so I apologise if I give this impression. I am just merely stating that users be a little bit more sensible on image resolutions on general posts. As I said previously, If you really need to post high resolution images then by all means continue to do so. :)
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viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
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sandord
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by sandord »

Some tips I'd like to add:

- Schematics often contain a lot of empty space in between the drawings, so preferably you'd upload them in a lossless compression format like PNG, which is much more effective in compressing these kind of images than JPG for example. My rule of thumb is: JPG for photographs, PNG for graphics/schematics. A lot of ST screenshots fit the latter as well, especially when taken from GEM.
- Cut away useless parts that are surrounding the subject on a picture after resizing it to 800 wide (or else the image will not drop in resolution).

By the way, Exxos, did you consider using an extension like https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2445391 ?
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by exxos »

sandord wrote: Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:11 pm By the way, Exxos, did you consider using an extension like https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2445391 ?
I was looking at extensions saw that one, but what extension I really need is one which will default to resizing images, but will allow the resizing to be turned off by the user by a simple tick box..

A lot of these extensions just force the images to be resized in the admin control panel. So this would mean anyone uploading a high resolution image, would automatically have it squashed.. And I don't want to lose every single high-resolution image in the future either.
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/ All my hardware guides - mods - games - STOS
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase.
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by exxos »

*BUMP*

Can people please resize images which do not need super high resolutions please. I'm starting to see 3-5MB images again where 100K sizes would be fine.

Of course if you *really* need the resolution that is perfectly fine.. such examples are motherboard images etc.

But please bare in mind, 100 posts of 5MB images burns up 0.5GB of space. Plus as a lot of people visit on mobile devices, the high MB image sizes makes pages render very slowly.

:thanksyellow:
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/ All my hardware guides - mods - games - STOS
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase.
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by DrF »

I think the problem is people don't want or know how to resize them properly not just in viewable size which most sites do for them but does not actually resize the picture in space taken up, if that makes sense. Most of them online picture resizers are a bit fiddly to use and don't do that great a job anyhow, and not many people have full art packages on there PC just to redo a pic for a online post.

I got web space if you need it anyhow :)
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by exxos »

DrF wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:05 pm I got web space if you need it anyhow :)
The forum does resize the image to 800px, but thats just a visual thing. Images have to be compressed during upload... Some people already said they cant resize the image because they on a tablet.. so its only really possible to do on the forum side.. but can only do it globally :(

DrF wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:05 pm I got web space if you need it anyhow :)
I do have "external" space, but I can't link the files folder on the forum to a external server. I'm happy to get more space on the server, but I don't want to "buy" a new package every few 100 images which is uploaded.
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by sandord »

I'm afraid the best solution still is installing/writing an extension that resizes the images right when they're uploaded.
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by DrF »

exxos wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 7:51 pm The forum does resize the image to 800px, but thats just a visual thing. Images have to be compressed during upload.
That's what I was getting at, no actual compression is going on. So that only leaves extensions/plugins?
Hot linking is not a option end up with all kinds of broken stuff everywhere.

Unless we have our own image dump that does all the compressing for us and then we link a usable thumbnail across?
Then it won't be global as you mentioned but selective?
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by exxos »

DrF wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:55 pm That's what I was getting at, no actual compression is going on. So that only leaves extensions/plugins?
Hot linking is not a option end up with all kinds of broken stuff everywhere.

Unless we have our own image dump that does all the compressing for us and then we link a usable thumbnail across?
Then it won't be global as you mentioned but selective?
I think the forum has built in image compression now.. but its global, so will get done to all images uploaded..

The only way would be if I hacked the upload form to run a script to compress the image then return the data to the forum.. but then its a hack which wont play nice when the forum software gets uploaded.. plus I have to figure out how to hack it in :roll:

I'm sure it would be simple to add the feature to not have the image compression global for the people who write the forum software..
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/ All my hardware guides - mods - games - STOS
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase.
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
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Re: Images attachment sizes reminder

Post by sandord »

exxos wrote: Thu Jan 03, 2019 9:03 pm I think the forum has built in image compression now.. but its global, so will get done to all images uploaded..

The only way would be if I hacked the upload form to run a script to compress the image then return the data to the forum.. but then its a hack which wont play nice when the forum software gets uploaded.. plus I have to figure out how to hack it in :roll:

I'm sure it would be simple to add the feature to not have the image compression global for the people who write the forum software..
If you only set a file size limit, not a resolution limit, the occasional image of schematics or a motherboard (which can really benefit from a high resolution) can still be uploaded if the author pre-processes it a bit.

For schematics this shouldn't be a problem at all, justs save as PNG or GIF which compresses really well when the image has a lot of evenly colour areas in it (e.g. a white background which most schematics have).

Regarding motherboard pictures: I've just tried one myself, it's a 5418x3188 picture of an ST motherboard and when I save it using JPEG quality 30, the file ends up beging exactly 1 MB and the quality is more than adequate.

Resizing the motherboard picture to about 2/3 (3576x2104) @JPEG quality 30 gives me 559 KB. The writings on the RAM chips are still clear enough to read.
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