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Any Photographers Out There? - What's the perfect image size? | ||
Discussion by everydaysushi with 20 Replies.
Last Update: June 27, 2005, 4:25 pm (View Latest) | Page 1 of 2 pages. | ||
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Me again. I'm about to build a new site to house my photography/portfolio, and I realize that the same thought always occurs when I'm about to get started. What's the perfect image size? I'm talking specifically about sites that house a lot of photography/images.
My first sites had rather large photos, because I thought bigger was better. With digicams getting better resolution and spitting out bigger and bigger pics, it seemed reasonable. But it was annoying how the scrolling bar would appear on the right when the image reached "page-capacity" so I scaled down the size. Now, I'm at about a 400x600 pixel size happiness (see below). But is that still too big?
And while I've got your expert attention on the subject, I assume most photo sites have functions that allow you to "slideshow" through them... (ie. next/previous). Does anyone have suggestions for how I could set that up, WITHOUT having superior knowledge in advanced scripts (I can only write HTML). It seems to me that I'd have to use some Java or something for that... have some kind of numerical sequencing system IF NEXT=TRUE, THEN X+1, X being the picture, pictures numbered 1-10. Ok I just made that up, but you get the picture (HAH!)
But really, I need help.
My first sites had rather large photos, because I thought bigger was better. With digicams getting better resolution and spitting out bigger and bigger pics, it seemed reasonable. But it was annoying how the scrolling bar would appear on the right when the image reached "page-capacity" so I scaled down the size. Now, I'm at about a 400x600 pixel size happiness (see below). But is that still too big?
And while I've got your expert attention on the subject, I assume most photo sites have functions that allow you to "slideshow" through them... (ie. next/previous). Does anyone have suggestions for how I could set that up, WITHOUT having superior knowledge in advanced scripts (I can only write HTML). It seems to me that I'd have to use some Java or something for that... have some kind of numerical sequencing system IF NEXT=TRUE, THEN X+1, X being the picture, pictures numbered 1-10. Ok I just made that up, but you get the picture (HAH!)
But really, I need help.
Notice from microscopic^earthling:
Moved to Desgning > Photography
Thu Dec 30, 2004 Reply New Discussion
I can't help you in terms of the slideshow issues, but in terms of the size...I think you're about right. The resolution of choice (for most people) is now 600x800...so, assuming the picture is basically the only thing that's of focus on the site...it's good. It would even work for people using archaic monitors! How exciting.
Thu Dec 30, 2004 Reply New Discussion
Hey Mate,
I get around with a camera a fair bit too. I have heaps and heaps of picts which I am just now begining to organise and put online. Like you, I knock my picts down to a max of 600 px (one side). I have found the photoalbum scripts available under astahost cpanel to be pretty good. I tried out coppermine and gallery. Both worked well. Gallery had a cool slide show feature.
Currently I am using tikiwiki and organising mainly family picts in their image gallery module. This requires next to zero knowledge of html. Just uploading picts. If you are going to use tikiwiki, let me know. There are a few tweeks you can do to prevent problems later on.
You can see my image galleries here just click on the Image Gallery link on the right side.
the BB wouldn't let me post/insert my pict here due to dynamic tags but I though you may want to see one of my landscpae picts ... desription is underneath on the site: http://www.hashbang.astahost.com/tiki/tiki...et=0&imageId=52
cheers
hashbang
I get around with a camera a fair bit too. I have heaps and heaps of picts which I am just now begining to organise and put online. Like you, I knock my picts down to a max of 600 px (one side). I have found the photoalbum scripts available under astahost cpanel to be pretty good. I tried out coppermine and gallery. Both worked well. Gallery had a cool slide show feature.
Currently I am using tikiwiki and organising mainly family picts in their image gallery module. This requires next to zero knowledge of html. Just uploading picts. If you are going to use tikiwiki, let me know. There are a few tweeks you can do to prevent problems later on.
You can see my image galleries here just click on the Image Gallery link on the right side.
the BB wouldn't let me post/insert my pict here due to dynamic tags but I though you may want to see one of my landscpae picts ... desription is underneath on the site: http://www.hashbang.astahost.com/tiki/tiki...et=0&imageId=52
cheers
hashbang
Fri Dec 31, 2004 Reply New Discussion
600x800 is a good size, though I would definately recommend that you keep some sort of original on your computer (or, if not plausible, a less scaled down image) just in case something happens to the result. If you're doing so already good for you When your original itself is digital you can't afford to lose it.
When your original itself is digital you can't afford to lose it.
Sun Jan 2, 2005 Reply New Discussion
Mastermund is right about keeping your originals. Also you must take into account that the larger the file the longer it takes to render on your page. You can use a "graphic optimizer" really a compressor to make the file smaller in storage size.
Sun Jan 2, 2005 Reply New Discussion
I have had the same issues. There are still a great deal of people who only have a dia- up service so you need to keep your images small, about 150k per page so it loads fast. I have made all my images linked to larger files so if people wish to see a higher res they only need to click. You also need to think about bandwidth of your host, photos take up a lot. Still getting the hang of it all. Only been a web builder for a month now. Site is running to about 110mb with 500 html pages.
Richard,
http://www.franceinfocus.net
Richard,
http://www.franceinfocus.net
Sun Jan 2, 2005 Reply New Discussion
Thanks for all the help. Good to know I'm not alone on this.
Anyone have any opinions/thoughts on watermarking images? I mean, just to protect yourself so they're not stolen or anything? Or... making the image less-than-desirable quality? Sucks because that's destroying your own image, but sometimes you want control over what you're displaying all over the web... Or am I just being paranoid?
Anyone have any opinions/thoughts on watermarking images? I mean, just to protect yourself so they're not stolen or anything? Or... making the image less-than-desirable quality? Sucks because that's destroying your own image, but sometimes you want control over what you're displaying all over the web... Or am I just being paranoid?
Sat Jan 8, 2005 Reply New Discussion
make it a flash sites and all images load in a single swf a time. its a bit harder to leech and watermark images seems sux and too selfish
Sat Jan 8, 2005 Reply New Discussion
QUOTE (r3d)
make it a flash sites and all images load in a single swf a time. its a bit harder to leech and watermark images seems sux and too selfish <_<
[post="12433"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
ah great idea. only problem... i don't have flash making software. is there any i can get freeware or at least cheaper than like the $400 Macromedia charges?
Wed Jan 12, 2005 Reply New Discussion
QUOTE (everydaysushi)
Anyone have any opinions/thoughts on watermarking images? I mean, just to protect yourself so they're not stolen or anything? Or... making the image less-than-desirable quality? Sucks because that's destroying your own image, but sometimes you want control over what you're displaying all over the web... Or am I just being paranoid?
[post="12431"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
How about fingerprinting your images with Steganography, that way you can see if any of your pictures are used on othe peoples webpages and I think (since I don't know) Steganography are using whitespace in your datastream to hide the fingerprint and don't degrade the quality to much.
Is there a way of interleaving picture data or when you load the picture one color is set to transparent. While looking on the website picture looks OK, when picture is downloaded onto users computer the color set to transparent will show and make the picture grainy (not sure if this is a correct assumption).
Reverse watermarking that are supressed while you view it online but when picture is downloaded it shows up because they don't have your algorythm....
Lot of assumtion on my part here but it may be possible if wee look around to find something like this.
Nils
Wed Jan 12, 2005 Reply New Discussion
OK
when you display images on a webpage you must remember that it may be displayed
with different display resolution *(1600*1200/....../1024*768/800*600/....and so on)
as with different browsers and different operating systems etc.)
So when you design a webpage with or without images
you have to consider this when making layout.
You can have images in all kinds of resolutions
whatever fits the situation and the webpage and the image
resolution is not the only thing that is importat
resolution is the pixelwidth/height
filesize is the bits ofcourse
and quality
this verry important element which depends and is a result of the relesionship between the other two elements(rez/filez=q)
this is a limited discription of the facts but its sufficent for this
explanation
when viewing images people tend to want to be able to actualy see them
this is the only thing you realy have to worry about
when making layout
-what people see
but displaying images in general
filesize should be way under 100k on pages with other images and or other elements like text etc.
in general keep images around about 10k or 20-30k
depending on what kind of image
only reason for this filesize issue is bandwith and storage
maby it will be solved better some time in the future?!
But when displaying images alone
or if you want to keep and option for the user to see the image in higher resolution
you can have whatever resolution you would like to give away
in general for viewing images on a computer screen
image resolution 1024*768 is sufficiant but if you would like make able for print
you should consider higher resolution
*****************************************************************
PROTECTING youre IMAGES:
I dont like the idea of protecting youre images
if you have gone as fare as display them you may aswell give them away
let them have them if they want
or maby you shouldnt have displayed them in the first place
but you should maby consider what resolution of the image you give away
if it is images that you plan to sell, then maby it is not
a good idea to give away high resolution copys of the images
but forgett about watermarking youre images and such
it ruins the image
thats my opinion anyway
*****************************************************************
but there is lots of options available for making a web image library/gallery
just google
but if you want to make one youreself but dont know that much about html and
all that confusing stuff
Flash is a good way to go
Flash mx 2004 and Flash mx 2004 professional
I know has a template for a simple photo/image library/gallery
Im gonna say some more about image quality
when you use a digital camera or scan images from paper/film
you always(almost) have the choice of filetype
the standard for displaying photo on web is the verry much known jpeg/jpg
(the jpg is just because of windows rather wanting 3 character file extension)
jpeg is a image format which compress the image
in most cases jpeg compression is lossy
You may have heard of different image filetypes
jpg / tiff / psd / png / gif / raw....
lamost every filetype has the option to compress the image
but not all have the option to make lossless quality from original
jpeg usualy does not have the option for lossless imagequality
but that is not the intention of jpeg
jpeg was made for compressing photo
when jpeg compressing - the program in use will try to find a pattern
in the image considered and make 'lossless to the eye' compression of the image.
remember you can set option for what jpeg quality
when saving an image in most progs. usualy 1-10
(and 6 or 7quality is sufficent for nice web display)
tiff and psd and so on are
formats for editing and printing images of high resolution
png and gif and alike are
formats for graphic and or images with ~one color parts and straight lines
gif and jpg = the two formats to consider when displaying on the web
when it comes to storing youre images you should consider other formats
but using digital cameras u usualy get jpg format
this is because that is what most people want
and in most cases it is sufficiant quality
on some (i couldnt say all) cameras there is an option for
saving youre images in raw or tiff quality
this is when you want to get the best from youre camera.
but then the filesize ofcourse
any way you have youre images ->
when storing them and editing resaving them in differnt programs
(like photoshop) you should find a way to rename the images so you can go
back and forth in the history of an image.
so rounding it up:
display the images in the resolution they deserve
dont be cheap about youre images
and good luck with youre image gallery
when you display images on a webpage you must remember that it may be displayed
with different display resolution *(1600*1200/....../1024*768/800*600/....and so on)
as with different browsers and different operating systems etc.)
So when you design a webpage with or without images
you have to consider this when making layout.
You can have images in all kinds of resolutions
whatever fits the situation and the webpage and the image
resolution is not the only thing that is importat
resolution is the pixelwidth/height
filesize is the bits ofcourse
and quality
this verry important element which depends and is a result of the relesionship between the other two elements(rez/filez=q)
this is a limited discription of the facts but its sufficent for this
explanation
when viewing images people tend to want to be able to actualy see them
this is the only thing you realy have to worry about
when making layout
-what people see
but displaying images in general
filesize should be way under 100k on pages with other images and or other elements like text etc.
in general keep images around about 10k or 20-30k
depending on what kind of image
only reason for this filesize issue is bandwith and storage
maby it will be solved better some time in the future?!
But when displaying images alone
or if you want to keep and option for the user to see the image in higher resolution
you can have whatever resolution you would like to give away
in general for viewing images on a computer screen
image resolution 1024*768 is sufficiant but if you would like make able for print
you should consider higher resolution
*****************************************************************
PROTECTING youre IMAGES:
I dont like the idea of protecting youre images
if you have gone as fare as display them you may aswell give them away
let them have them if they want
or maby you shouldnt have displayed them in the first place
but you should maby consider what resolution of the image you give away
if it is images that you plan to sell, then maby it is not
a good idea to give away high resolution copys of the images
but forgett about watermarking youre images and such
it ruins the image
thats my opinion anyway
*****************************************************************
but there is lots of options available for making a web image library/gallery
just google
but if you want to make one youreself but dont know that much about html and
all that confusing stuff
Flash is a good way to go
Flash mx 2004 and Flash mx 2004 professional
I know has a template for a simple photo/image library/gallery
Im gonna say some more about image quality
when you use a digital camera or scan images from paper/film
you always(almost) have the choice of filetype
the standard for displaying photo on web is the verry much known jpeg/jpg
(the jpg is just because of windows rather wanting 3 character file extension)
jpeg is a image format which compress the image
in most cases jpeg compression is lossy
You may have heard of different image filetypes
jpg / tiff / psd / png / gif / raw....
lamost every filetype has the option to compress the image
but not all have the option to make lossless quality from original
jpeg usualy does not have the option for lossless imagequality
but that is not the intention of jpeg
jpeg was made for compressing photo
when jpeg compressing - the program in use will try to find a pattern
in the image considered and make 'lossless to the eye' compression of the image.
remember you can set option for what jpeg quality
when saving an image in most progs. usualy 1-10
(and 6 or 7quality is sufficent for nice web display)
tiff and psd and so on are
formats for editing and printing images of high resolution
png and gif and alike are
formats for graphic and or images with ~one color parts and straight lines
gif and jpg = the two formats to consider when displaying on the web
when it comes to storing youre images you should consider other formats
but using digital cameras u usualy get jpg format
this is because that is what most people want
and in most cases it is sufficiant quality
on some (i couldnt say all) cameras there is an option for
saving youre images in raw or tiff quality
this is when you want to get the best from youre camera.
but then the filesize ofcourse
any way you have youre images ->
when storing them and editing resaving them in differnt programs
(like photoshop) you should find a way to rename the images so you can go
back and forth in the history of an image.
so rounding it up:
display the images in the resolution they deserve
dont be cheap about youre images
and good luck with youre image gallery
Mon Jan 31, 2005 Reply New Discussion
I like to use Coppermine, it has a lot of functions to resize, whatever your images, so you don't have to worry about that as much
Thu Feb 3, 2005 Reply New Discussion
photo shop can make you a very quick and easy gallery that looks good, the images are only upto 450pix i think, anyway takes about 5 mins thats all.
chris
chris
Fri Feb 4, 2005 Reply New Discussion
QUOTE (chris1234)
photo shop can make you a very quick and easy gallery that looks good, the images are only upto 450pix i think, anyway takes about 5 mins thats all.chris
[post="15601"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]
PHOTOSHOP?? I've never heard of Photoshop helping to make galleries... can you tell me how? Thx!
Mon Feb 14, 2005 Reply New Discussion
Hmm. I display photos too, so I'll give a few tips:
Yes, 600x400 is a good size, if you're displaying photographs taken in the traditional 35mm aspect ratio. This is because even the 640x480 people will be able to see your entire picture without scrolling, though if you're aiming to target those people make sure your webpage design allows for 600x400 picture without adding more pixels on each side of the photo (like if you have a 100 pixel width banner next to your photos the people using 640x480 won't be able to see your entire photo at once).
Usually I even add a white border around my photos. It gives it a rather professional feel. Around 10 pixels around is quite nice. The background of my webpage is black is I have a photo surrounded by a white border and then by black. That's how they display photos in professional galleries anyway.
I find that by showing my photos at such low resolution is already some type of protection against people stealing my images. A picture at 600x400 (including the white border!) does not print well on 4R medium (I know, I work at a photo developing shop), and so long as nobody prints out my work and claim it's theirs, good enough for me. You might also want to save the picture using Photoshop CS's save for web, I usually save my pictures at JPEG High quality which brings the size of the photo down to around 50-60KB, and still look pretty decent.
If you have Photoshop CS, look under File>Automate>Web Photo Gallery. I've never actually tried it before, but it looks like you can specify your photos and Photoshop will design a template for a gallery, HTML files and all.
Yes, 600x400 is a good size, if you're displaying photographs taken in the traditional 35mm aspect ratio. This is because even the 640x480 people will be able to see your entire picture without scrolling, though if you're aiming to target those people make sure your webpage design allows for 600x400 picture without adding more pixels on each side of the photo (like if you have a 100 pixel width banner next to your photos the people using 640x480 won't be able to see your entire photo at once).
Usually I even add a white border around my photos. It gives it a rather professional feel. Around 10 pixels around is quite nice. The background of my webpage is black is I have a photo surrounded by a white border and then by black. That's how they display photos in professional galleries anyway.
I find that by showing my photos at such low resolution is already some type of protection against people stealing my images. A picture at 600x400 (including the white border!) does not print well on 4R medium (I know, I work at a photo developing shop), and so long as nobody prints out my work and claim it's theirs, good enough for me. You might also want to save the picture using Photoshop CS's save for web, I usually save my pictures at JPEG High quality which brings the size of the photo down to around 50-60KB, and still look pretty decent.
If you have Photoshop CS, look under File>Automate>Web Photo Gallery. I've never actually tried it before, but it looks like you can specify your photos and Photoshop will design a template for a gallery, HTML files and all.
Fri Mar 25, 2005 Reply New Discussion
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