why is the quality not good on my uploads?

snowfairy

I'm wondering if I have a setting off or if this is just my imagination

This is from my smugmug gallery and, the same picture from my freebie photobucket account

Andy

What's not right, to your eyes?
Tell us more, please, much more.

snowfairy

Andy wrote:

What's not right, to your eyes?
Tell us more, please, much more.

The pictures in my smugmug gallery seems blurrier than the photobucket picture. I asked a friend who knows more about computers and she mentioned this..
The first photo is ~ 38 kb, the second is 160k!
Looks like the Smugmug photo has more .jpg compression applied to it.

Andy

snowfairy wrote:

The pictures in my smugmug gallery seems blurrier than the photobucket picture. I asked a friend who knows more about computers and she mentioned this..
The first photo is ~ 38 kb, the second is 160k!
Looks like the Smugmug photo has more .jpg compression applied to it.

2nd photo is actually 76k...

http://img.skitch.com/20081013-qjh432gmrswgwb3negr7pn3p3w.jpg

are we talking about apples and apples?

snowfairy

Andy wrote:

2nd photo is actually 76k...

http://img.skitch.com/20081013-qjh432gmrswgwb3negr7pn3p3w.jpg

are we talking about apples and apples?

yes, it was the same pictures not sure where she got the numbers from

anyway.. could the smug mug picture being almost half the size even though it is a bigger picture be causing the picture to not be as clear? Or do I have a setting wrong on my smugmug account somewhere? (which knowing me could be very likely )

Andy

snowfairy wrote:

yes, it was the same pictures not sure where she got the numbers from

anyway.. could the smug mug picture being almost half the size even though it is a bigger picture be causing the picture to not be as clear? Or do I have a setting wrong on my smugmug account somewhere? (which knowing me could be very likely )

They aren't the same. Let's see a link to the photo on Photobucket, please

snowfairy

the photobucket picture is in the first post as well.. not sure what you are asking? It's the one labeled photobucket picture It's the one you said was 76K. I was just wondering if there was a way I could get them to not compress so much so the images are at least as good as what's on my photobucket account I don't notice the diff. on most of my pictures but for some reason my last session seemed to make it more obvious.

here's the link in case you need that as well.

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj270/OnlyAGlimmer/blackandwhitefinal.jpg

Andy

SmugMug on Left, Photobucket on Right:


They are the same, no?

Erick L

The two photos aren't the same to begin with. They might come from the same original but they aren't cropped the same so that means the jpeg compression isn't the same from the start. You need to upload the EXACT SAME FILE to both places to judge. EDIT: just like Andy did.

snowfairy

Andy wrote:

SmugMug on Left, Photobucket on Right:


They are the same, no?

I can't tell .. but those both look like the photobucket picture. The smugmug one I posted is noticeably blurrier.

(I cropped the photobucket picture after uploading and forgot) My question is..

Why is the quality of my smugmug picture blurrier when I uploaded the full size then the photobucket picture is when I uploaded it the full size as well.

The left is what I get when I upload the full size to smumug and the right and is what I get when I resize it to a smaller size in photoshop and THEN upload it to smugmug




Would it solve the problem if I resized them before I uploaded for clarity reasons and then replaced the picture after they placed an order (with the full size)

Andy

You can try a little more sharpening if you like See the info on custom sharpening, here http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-quality

ontherivet

I was asking a question a few days ago in another thread about slideshow resolution and what I probably should have been asking about is being discussed in this post.

I have been trying to figure out if there are resolution differences between the same pictures that I have uploaded into both flickr and smugmug. I'm certainly seeing what appears to be a difference. The pictures were uploaded with default settings and the photo is straight off the camera without any modification. I right-clicked/properties on the same photo in both systems.

Smugmug: 340x452...65,533 bytes
Flickr: 375x500...141,078 bytes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30828060@N04/3029516373/
http://donp.smugmug.com/photos/416536831_p9R4t-M-2.jpg

Increasing the sharpness amount in smugmug increases the image size slightly to 67,840 (I can't see much improvement) and even on large size the 450x600 image is only 104k.

The only conclusion I can come up with is the screen resolution of the images displayed in flickr are higher than smugmug or am I missing something?

Thanks.

rainforest1155

ontherivet wrote:

Smugmug: 340x452...65,533 bytes
Flickr: 375x500...141,078 bytes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30828060@N04/3029516373/
http://donp.smugmug.com/photos/416536831_p9R4t-M-2.jpg

Increasing the sharpness amount in smugmug increases the image size slightly to 67,840 (I can't see much improvement) and even on large size the 450x600 image is only 104k.

The only conclusion I can come up with is the screen resolution of the images displayed in flickr are higher than smugmug or am I missing something?

Thanks.

Who says that bigger is better? Did you actually just try to compare what the photo looks like? After all that is what matters. There's only one resolution and that's the resolution of the photo. DPI or PPI or what it is called does not matter.
The only other factor that comes into play in terms of quality if compression. But a lower compression doesn't mean you're getting more quality. To a certain amount of JPG compression, you don't see any difference other then the file size.
Also, the more sharpened a photo is, the bigger it is in size.

It may be that Flickr uses a more aggressive sharpening since they are optimizing their display for kind of small display sizes.

Such tiny display copies can't really represent a photo very good and are no good basis for a quality comparison. Screens are getting bigger and that's on SmugMug you get to view your photos big.

Sebastian

WinsomeWorks

On my screen, there's a definite noticeable difference. The photo at left has less clarity, seems grainier & has less subtleties in the shading. I have a really fantastic monitor, & it's easy to see this on it. However, in your very first post, I only see one photo... the one on the left. (SmugMug) This is curious-- it sounded like everyone else was seeing two! In all the later posts, I see both.

AspectArts

Flickr totally uses a very aggressive sharpening when you upload. I've heard lots of complaints about this from Flickr users who find the sharpening on their already sharpened pics to be too much.

rainforest1155 wrote:

Who says that bigger is better? Did you actually just try to compare what the photo looks like? After all that is what matters. There's only one resolution and that's the resolution of the photo. DPI or PPI or what it is called does not matter.
The only other factor that comes into play in terms of quality if compression. But a lower compression doesn't mean you're getting more quality. To a certain amount of JPG compression, you don't see any difference other then the file size.
Also, the more sharpened a photo is, the bigger it is in size.

It may be that Flickr uses a more aggressive sharpening since they are optimizing their display for kind of small display sizes.

Such tiny display copies can't really represent a photo very good and are no good basis for a quality comparison. Screens are getting bigger and that's on SmugMug you get to view your photos big.

Sebastian

jenswrens

Flickr quality does seem better
Please don't take offense, but...

I have also had a pro Flickr acct for a long time. I just today imported all of my Flickr photos to my new power smugmug account using Migrator. As I compare, the Flickr photos (on Flickr) are definitely sharper and seem to be better quality than the exact same images on smugmug.

Is there a way I can remedy this on my smugmug photos? Because I do like the format and customizable-ness (is that a word) of smugmug better. But the photos just don't look the same.

Andy

jenswrens wrote:

Please don't take offense, but...

I have also had a pro Flickr acct for a long time. I just today imported all of my Flickr photos to my new power smugmug account using Migrator. As I compare, the Flickr photos (on Flickr) are definitely sharper and seem to be better quality than the exact same images on smugmug.

Is there a way I can remedy this on my smugmug photos? Because I do like the format and customizable-ness (is that a word) of smugmug better. But the photos just don't look the same.

Hi! It would be super for us to see a couple apples to apples link comparisons.

You can adjust sharpening to taste on SmugMug, but before I'd recommend that I want to see your images