Picture requirements.

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Thehuntmaster, Sep 4, 2013.

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  1. Thehuntmaster

    Thehuntmaster Initiate (0) Sep 2, 2009 South Africa

    Hi guys,

    I know there have been a few threads about resizing pictures, but I can't seem to find an answer to my problem specifically.

    I resize my pics to the required 150x300, but they always come out at + - 50kbs. The original images are quite large (15mp), so I am guessing this is the problem! I did find one website that reduces the quality, but the pics are unusable once they are reduced below 20kb. Any ideas?

    Thanks
     
    #1 Thehuntmaster, Sep 4, 2013
  2. Geuzedad

    Geuzedad Initiate (0) Nov 14, 2010 Arizona

    I always use imgur. I have it as an app on my phone and it gets it right for me every time.
     
    #2 Geuzedad, Sep 4, 2013
  3. sliverX

    sliverX Maven (1,459) Oct 5, 2007 South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands

    #3 sliverX, Sep 4, 2013
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  4. Mojo

    Mojo Initiate (0) Jul 21, 2012 Alabama
    Trader

    I use Photoshop CS5 with a save for the web option.
     
    #4 Mojo, Sep 4, 2013
  5. Thehuntmaster

    Thehuntmaster Initiate (0) Sep 2, 2009 South Africa

    Tried this, still seems to save it at 65kb :/
     
    #5 Thehuntmaster, Sep 4, 2013
  6. sliverX

    sliverX Maven (1,459) Oct 5, 2007 South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands

    Not at a comouter but pretty sure theres a box where you can enter max file size.
     
    #6 sliverX, Sep 4, 2013
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  7. FrankHammer

    FrankHammer Initiate (0) Jan 31, 2013 Michigan

    Why don't they just up the file size cap? 20kb?! What is this 1995?
     
    #7 FrankHammer, Sep 4, 2013
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  8. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Seeing as there are almost 100K beers and probably another 30K or so places, that is quite a bit of data (which costs $ especially when you consider the backup and all... Don't think they want to run an image storage site as it would be optimized quite differently than for a site like BA.
     
    #8 dbrauneis, Sep 4, 2013
  9. BlackNote

    BlackNote Initiate (0) Apr 5, 2013 Michigan

    I think you hit the nail on the head with this. Have you tried taking the picture at a lower mp?
     
    #9 BlackNote, Sep 4, 2013
  10. Thehuntmaster

    Thehuntmaster Initiate (0) Sep 2, 2009 South Africa

    I have thought about that. But it seems like a lot of effort to especially change my camera settings just to put a pic on BA. I take pics of the beers I drink for my own personal use, but I guess I can just retake the pictures at a lower quality.
     
    #10 Thehuntmaster, Sep 4, 2013
  11. BlackNote

    BlackNote Initiate (0) Apr 5, 2013 Michigan

    Might be a stupid question, but do you have another, cheaper camera you can use so you don't have to change back and forth? Or maybe your camera on your phone. That's what I use for pretty much all my photos, even of the kids.
     
    #11 BlackNote, Sep 4, 2013
  12. salzar

    salzar Initiate (0) Dec 27, 2008 California

    With Adobe Fireworks you can adjust the jpeg compression settings and view the output / filesize at the same time.
     
    #12 salzar, Sep 4, 2013
  13. Thehuntmaster

    Thehuntmaster Initiate (0) Sep 2, 2009 South Africa

    Yip I could use my phone. Just feels bad to use a phone when you have a pro camera :stuck_out_tongue:
     
    #13 Thehuntmaster, Sep 4, 2013
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  14. LambicPentameter

    LambicPentameter Initiate (0) Aug 29, 2012 Nebraska

    Seconding the recommendation for Irfanview. As sliverX was noting, when you 'save as' in Irfanview, there is a little box to the side that says "JPEG/GIF save options". The final item under the JPEG list is "set file size", and allows you to set any number you want.

    This is what I use for the pictures I add, because even though I use my phone, it's an iPhone, so the images can be too large without a little help.
     
    #14 LambicPentameter, Sep 4, 2013
  15. FrankHammer

    FrankHammer Initiate (0) Jan 31, 2013 Michigan


    At 20kb per pic that is less than 5GB of data. Pretty sure they can afford it. You could host the whole site's worth of pictures, with plenty of room to spare, on Google Drive. For free.
     
    #15 FrankHammer, Sep 4, 2013
  16. DaveAnderson

    DaveAnderson Initiate (0) Jan 11, 2011 Minnesota

    Don't forget avatars.

    But storing and serving the photos is only one part of the equation. Given how easy it is to transform an image at the point of contribution, I can't see the justification for such a small limit for incoming file sizes.
     
    #16 DaveAnderson, Sep 4, 2013
  17. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Actually, I do not believe that you can host them on Google drive for free (at least according to the T&Cs from Google about commercial use)... I would also guess that the pictures are likely being stored in the database along with the rest of the information about the beers which would increase the cost of storage over just plain old filesystem and there is also the cost of backup (both in $$$ and time).

    I guess with the small staff that BA has (especially for IT & support), they decided to focus on the beer specific stuff rather than becoming an image hosting site... I would also guess that the image requirements were made quite a while ago and they have no desire to increase them as cameras (including phone cameras) have improved. Also, larger images will increase page load times for people on lower quality connections (especially mobile phone).

    I know I appreciated the smaller image size when I was looking things up on a phone when overseas.
     
    #17 dbrauneis, Sep 4, 2013
  18. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    This has been addressed in numerous threads, with tips and and links to resources. You basically need to adjust the compression level of the JPG. Free programs like http://www.gimp.org handle this very well before saving your file.

    We've also acknowledged that our image uploading system for beer/place pics is very old. It has nothing to do with storage restrictions or bandwidth. It's just old code.

    We're currently working on redesigning how we handle images (from serving to file manipulation), and the ability to upload an original file for a beer/place, crop and create thumbnails is in the works.
     
    #18 Todd, Sep 4, 2013
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