Not happy with resized Image Quality, what can we do?

pengrus

I am a new Pro Account Trial User.

I was all ready to move to smugmug until I uploaded some wedding pictures.

The resized pictures have some severe artifacts in many pictures. Give you one example:

1. http://peng.smugmug.com/gallery/716051/11/31376611/Large
Notice the finger with the ring?

2. http://peng.smugmug.com/gallery/716051/11/31376596/Large
Notice the arm of the lady on the right?

When I view the pictures on my computer, it does not show the artifact at all. Could you please tell me if this is due to OVER-Sharpen or UNDER-sharpen of smugmug? Probably OVER-Sharpen, right?

Here is what I used for taking these pictures:
Canon 20D Digital
ISO 800
Canon 50/1.4
Parameter Settings:
JPEG (L/fine)
Contrast: 0
Sharpness: 2
Saturation: 2
Color Tone: 0

I know there is no use to complain how smugmug resize and sharpen. But maybe there is a setting in my camera that I can adjust higher or lower to accomodate smumug's resizing and sharpenning?

Could anyone who is familiar with Canon 20D or experienced photographer can tell me based on the picture above if I should adjust the Sharpness setting in my camera lower or higher to get the best resized image quality on smugmug?

Thank you!
Sean

Andy

i don't see the probs you are referring to. smugmug must apply some sharpening to -L images, else they get complaints that images look "soft"

you should apply less sharpening in your post-processing routine.

cheers

andy

pengrus

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. You do not see any unclear edges in the two pictures?

Even your blinking eye avatar is sharp and clear compared to my posted pictures. :

I have no post processing besides the level adjustment, then I upload the JPEGs to smugmug. So the only sharpeness adjustment in in camera (@ 2) to the Large Fine JPEG.

Emm, please take another look at the picture 2, the bottom edge of the older lady's arm - what caused that?

Andy

pengrus wrote:

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. You do not see any unclear edges in the two pictures?

Even your blinking eye avatar is sharp and clear compared to my posted pictures. :

I have no post processing besides the level adjustment, then I upload the JPEGs to smugmug. So the only sharpeness adjustment in in camera (@ 2) to the Large Fine JPEG.

Emm, please take another look at the picture 2, the bottom edge of the older lady's arm - what caused that?

turn your in-camera sharpening down then...
i do not see what you are seeing on the lady's arm. i'm using i.e. on a pc right now, calibrated 19" monitor.

looks good!

grannyrobin

pengrus wrote:

Andy,

Thanks for your reply. You do not see any unclear edges in the two pictures?

Even your blinking eye avatar is sharp and clear compared to my posted pictures. :

I have no post processing besides the level adjustment, then I upload the JPEGs to smugmug. So the only sharpeness adjustment in in camera (@ 2) to the Large Fine JPEG.

Emm, please take another look at the picture 2, the bottom edge of the older lady's arm - what caused that?

I don't see any unclear edges. I don't see anything other than photos; crisp, clear photos.

I'm using a PC, Firefox, an LCD monitor.

Just in case you cared to hear another viewer's experiences...
-Robin

pengrus

Thanks for your feedback...

Emmm, that makes it challenging as I see it and others don't.

Is it because of my monitor? I viewed them on my laptop and my LCD with desktop. Both show the same problem....

delenca

This is an issue that's been the source of much debate at smugmug. I too have found that the thumbnails (S, M and L) are often too oversharpened and compressed at Smugmug, leading to the formation of jpg artifacts like haloes and jaggies.
For instance, here's a couple of threads - Chris and others at Smugmug are very straightforward about why they have chosen the levels of compression (for speed) and sharpening (b/c apparently people complain more about softness than oversharpening artifacts): http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=14404&page=2&highlight=sharpening
http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=5366

The bottom line is that these jaggies and haloes are more visible on some monitors that others but they are there and can be obvious depending on your monitor (for me, I saw ugly jaggies around the eyes). Right now Smugmug does not let you set your level of sharpening so your options are: (1) live with it until (and if) smugmug ever allows you to control the amount of sharpening; (2) use one of the workarounds mentioned in the other threads; or (3) consider a different host. I ended up deciding on ImageEvent.com instead. They allow you to choose your own level of sharpening and they don't compress the thumbnails as much. It's too bad because Smugmug seems like a good host and the customer support is very responsive. I'm keeping an eye on this forum to see what/if Smugmug does about this issue.

Good luck,
Alex

pengrus

Thanks Alex. I read both posts.

At this point, I believe it is not a sharpness issue, since you can cope with smugmug's approach. I believe it is compression issue.

For 800 pixel large photo, the size is only 60-70KB? That is way too low even considering removing the ICC data.

The quality problem I referred to now is clearly caused by a poor compression.

I ran a digital photography forum with over 8000 members. And our average picture size for 700 pixel picture is 120-150KB.


Can we get some input from Smugmug team on the compression?

Thanks!

Andy

pengrus wrote:

Thanks Alex. I read both posts.

At this point, I believe it is not a sharpness issue, since you can cope with smugmug's approach. I believe it is compression issue.

For 800 pixel large photo, the size is only 60-70KB? That is way too low even considering removing the ICC data.

The quality problem I referred to now is clearly caused by a poor compression.

I ran a digital photography forum with over 8000 members. And our average picture size for 700 pixel picture is 120-150KB.


Can we get some input from Smugmug team on the compression?

Thanks!

pengrus, i'm a pro account holder and i can tell you that i wouldn't want my customers to wait for a 150kb images - and smugmug is catering to millions of viewers here - they know what the byteload threshold is for page views before customers may say "ugh - too slow!"

i've been with smugmug since nearly the beginning of time - and i nor my clients have ever had an issue with compression.

pengrus

andy wrote:

pengrus, i'm a pro account holder and i can tell you that i wouldn't want my customers to wait for a 150kb images - and smugmug is catering to millions of viewers here - they know what the byteload threshold is for page views before customers may say "ugh - too slow!"

i've been with smugmug since nearly the beginning of time - and i nor my clients have ever had an issue with compression.

Andy,

I think for the picture with 800 pixel on the longest side, the size has to be at least 120-150 KB or it will have some problems that Alex and I were describing.

What is your smugmug link? Can I take a look to compare?

Thanks!

Andy

pengrus wrote:

Andy,

I think for the picture with 800 pixel on the longest side, the size has to be at least 120-150 KB or it will have some problems that Alex and I were describing.

What is your smugmug link? Can I take a look to compare?

Thanks!

click on my avatar you'll find out everything you need.

cheers

Barb

pengrus wrote:

I am a new Pro Account Trial User.

I was all ready to move to smugmug until I uploaded some wedding pictures.

The resized pictures have some severe artifacts in many pictures. Give you one example:

Sean,

Just thought I'd jump in and say that I do not see the problems with your photos either.

PC-Firefox-WinXP

Can also check on my Mac when I get home. But from here, they look fine Just another opinion ...

Matthew Saville

For what it's worth Andy, I'd definitely vote to bump up the JPG quality one or two (or three) "levels". But maybe, ONLY for small / medium thumbs? Here's my pitch: As far as file size goes they're relatively miniscule anyways. Add to this the fact that we are as of semi-recently allowed to turn "L" images off. Are many other pros doing this? I do, because "PROOF" works fine when you're selling portraits but it really shoots yourself in the foot when you're trying to showcase artwork that nobody paid you to get up at 5:00 AM to capture.

This is why I think medium / small thumbs could get a little nicer. Wouldn't you, if you're trying to buy a 20x30" print and all you get to see is a tiny, 600x400 pixel image to vouch for quality?

Please at least say that you understand where I'm coming from here,
-Matt-

Andy

Matthew Saville wrote:

For what it's worth Andy, I'd definitely vote to bump up the JPG quality one or two (or three) "levels". But maybe, ONLY for medium thumbs? Here's my pitch: As far as file size goes they're relatively miniscule anyways. Add to this the fact that we are allowed to turn "L" images off. Are many other pros doing this? I do, because "PROOF" works fine when you're selling portraits but it's really shooting yourself in the foot when you're trying to showcase artwork that nobody paid you to get up at 5:00 AM to capture. This is why I think medium / small thumbs could get a little nicer. Wouldn't you, if you're trying to buy a 20x30" print and all you get to see is a tiny, 600x400 pixel image to vouch for quality?

Please at least say that you understand where I'm coming from here,
-Matt-

of course, i understand. but i do not agree. i think the quality of the -M and -L images are great, enough for me to entice plenty of folks to buy my images, license them for corporate use, buy giant prints, and more. i also allow larges though....

Matthew Saville

andy wrote:

of course, i understand. but i do not agree. i think the quality of the -M and -L images are great, enough for me to entice plenty of folks to buy my images, license them for corporate use, buy giant prints, and more. i also allow larges though....

You ARE right as well, it's just the perfectionist inside who worries about all the details, details that most every fan / client is probably overlooking. Go figure!

-Matt-

pengrus

I am really surprised by the standard that some photographers have here.

My wife does not even know how to control the camera dial, she asked me over the phone yesterday, "do you think we lost the quality after uploading to smugmug?". I've used several imagehosting sites, and we never experienced this issue before.

It is not that you cope with the poor compression. It is either you improve and listen to your outspoken customers, or you lose the business and lose your reputation.

We are not trying to be perfectionists. But when you downsize the picture, it got to be crisp and clear. I have browsed a few wedding albums here at smugmug, most of the low light shots do not look good. Other shots like Macro or landscape is not as noticeable.

dave_bass5

Hi all.
this is my first post so please bare with me.
i have just started to notice this to here is an example. look at the wording on the balloon on the right
http://davepearce.smugmug.com/photos/32229599-L.jpg

This is fine on the original.
Can some one give me a giude to what size i should use to avoid this or would that not work as i would need 3 different sizes?
I do understand why smugmug are doing it i just wanted to see if there is a work around
thanks for any help

Dave.

pengrus

Did you remove that image, Dave? How large is that L image?

DavidTO

pengrus wrote:

Andy,

I think for the picture with 800 pixel on the longest side, the size has to be at least 120-150 KB or it will have some problems that Alex and I were describing.

What is your smugmug link? Can I take a look to compare?

Thanks!

Andy's on vacation. Click on his name above his avatar and in the pull down you'll see the option to visit his homepage.

quagmire321

pengrus wrote:

I am a new Pro Account Trial User.

I was all ready to move to smugmug until I uploaded some wedding pictures.

When I view the pictures on my computer, it does not show the artifact at all. Could you please tell me if this is due to OVER-Sharpen or UNDER-sharpen of smugmug? Probably OVER-Sharpen, right?

I know there is no use to complain how smugmug resize and sharpen. But maybe there is a setting in my camera that I can adjust higher or lower to accomodate smumug's resizing and sharpenning?

Could anyone who is familiar with Canon 20D or experienced photographer can tell me based on the picture above if I should adjust the Sharpness setting in my camera lower or higher to get the best resized image quality on smugmug?

Thank you!
Sean

Sean,

I did not look look at your shots but I started a topic on this quite awhile back about this issue and custom watermarking.

It's here : Message

I posted some details on how I 'overcome' this particular problem there.

Have fun! :

pengrus

quagmire321 wrote:

Thanks for the link. I read and responded to that thread. So what is the work around for the poor compression?

quagmire321

pengrus wrote:

quagmire321 wrote:

Thanks for the link. I read and responded to that thread. So what is the work around for the poor compression?

No real workaround if you want to show your shots at their best and be able to allow clients to order prints from the same shots. At the moment, you will have to live with what Smugmug does (yes, I don't like it).

Please do consider for a moment, selling prints is just one of the reasons for having an account on Smugmug.

dave_bass5

pengrus wrote:

Did you remove that image, Dave? How large is that L image?

yes i did, sorry.
I have uploaded the gallery again but resized my pics to 800 along the long edge. after reading a few threads here i figured i cant do anything about it apart from make my images smaller myself.
This seems to sort it out but any of the smaller sizes re introduces the artifacts again. all i want is for people open the page and see the full size image as default.
I guess i will then have to have another (hidden?) gallery that has the full size images for when i want to get prints made.

dave.

unsavory

andy wrote:

of course, i understand. but i do not agree. i think the quality of the -M and -L images are great, enough for me to entice plenty of folks to buy my images, license them for corporate use, buy giant prints, and more. i also allow larges though....

Andy, I am sorry but I must disagree with you. There is a very significant compression issue with smugmug. The reason I am reading this is because I noticed it with many of my images so decided to search the forums to see if I was the only one with this issue.

Your photo is a prime example of a overcompressed image: http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/634937/2/18247733

There is significat JPEG artifacts around the hand and the bird. This is not the only photo. There are many others in your gallery with the same problem. Great gallery by the way!

Here is another example from my own gallery of an image that has been waaay overcompressed: http://unsavory.smugmug.com/gallery/731178/3/33556941

You will notice there is very noticable significant artifacts on her face, arms and especially legs. View the Original version however, and it is clear and crisp.

Smugmug may be applying such high compression to save bandwidth. But what I actually end up doing, is linking to the larger photos directly because I notice the medium and small versions suffer much more than the large one does. This is costing them bandwidth.

I too have been with Smugmug for a while. But I am considering making the jump because I can't stand viewing my photos so mutilated any longer. I take photos with a great camera and the best glass I can afford so I can get clear crisp photos. None of that matters if my image hoster is going to compress them to the point where they are no longer tolerable.

All those images in that link were all pre-sized in Photoshop to 1024x768 and saved as JPG lvl 10 by the way.

Mike Lane

unsavory wrote:

Andy, I am sorry but I must disagree with you. There is a very significant compression issue with smugmug. The reason I am reading this is because I noticed it with many of my images so decided to search the forums to see if I was the only one with this issue.

Your photo is a prime example of a overcompressed image: http://www.moonriverphotography.com/gallery/634937/2/18247733

There is significat JPEG artifacts around the hand and the bird. This is not the only photo. There are many others in your gallery with the same problem. Great gallery by the way!

Here is another example from my own gallery of an image that has been waaay overcompressed: http://unsavory.smugmug.com/gallery/731178/3/33556941

You will notice there is very noticable significant artifacts on her face, arms and especially legs. View the Original version however, and it is clear and crisp.

Smugmug may be applying such high compression to save bandwidth. But what I actually end up doing, is linking to the larger photos directly because I notice the medium and small versions suffer much more than the large one does. This is costing them bandwidth.

I too have been with Smugmug for a while. But I am considering making the jump because I can't stand viewing my photos so mutilated any longer. I take photos with a great camera and the best glass I can afford so I can get clear crisp photos. None of that matters if my image hoster is going to compress them to the point where they are no longer tolerable.

All those images in that link were all pre-sized in Photoshop to 1024x768 and saved as JPG lvl 10 by the way.

I've got to tell you that I was huge on this issue when I first noticed it. Check out http://www.mikelanephotography.com/photos/19619551-L.jpg. But there's a point when you have to step back and realize who your audience is. I don't know for certain, but my guess is that Andy's audience is much wider than just about anyone else's on smugmug. I suspect that he sells to people who range from casual photography admirers to hard core image professionals and he does it with previews on smugmug.

Here's my point, and it was a difficult thing for me to come to terms with: The vast majority of people aren't nearly as concerned with the bits of artifacts in your smugmug photos that drive you up the wall. They just plain aren't. Yes, there may be some who, like you and me, get their noses up to the screen in Andy's picture of the seagull taking some bread and don't like the artifacts that they see. By and large, those people know too that the prints probably won't have such an issue.

So, if the on screen artifacting isn't drastically affecting the viewer experience, what is? The speed of that experience. The internet is more like other mediums than some give it credit for. On TV if a channel's signal goes out for 3 or 4 seconds what do you do? Grab the remote and change the channel. If a website is taking forever to load what do you do? Move on to another website. Smugmug only has so much bandwidth and given that they're a photo sharing site who allows original sized images (often at 3 or 4 MB a piece) they are in a particularly unique situation that requires them to make certain sacrifices.

We all know this and we all want the best picture quality. There is a certain satisfaction in high quality pictures but those high quality pictures will noticeably degrade the quality of the surfing experience on smugmug. The contention is that you will lose more customers if they have to wait than if you have some hard-to-see artifacting in your smaller than original sized images.

Consider this as well. Bandwidth comes at a steep price and that price will be pushed down to the consumer (which is us, the smugmug subscribers). I for one am not interested in paying hundreds of dollars more per year just so I can rid my pictures of some artifacting. Maybe that's just me though.

Anyhow, this is all my two cents, and this is after some time to think about the whole picture. This just isn't as big of a deal as some (including myself) have made it out to be. The much bigger deal is the overal surfing experience that your customers will have and little changes in the amount of artifacting in each picture has massive affects on the speed that everyone's pages load.

behr655

I've also been having the same problem with my most recently up-loaded albums. My older albums still look fine. This seemed to coincide with the changes made recently on Smugmug. Maybe they've changed how they sharpen and compress.


Bear

Andy

unsavory wrote:

All those images in that link were all pre-sized in Photoshop to 1024x768 and saved as JPG lvl 10 by the way.

hiya unsavory, nice to see you.

since you resize, why not just resize to 800px max and allow originals? downsample as you see fit

Andy

Mike Lane wrote:

Here's my point, and it was a difficult thing for me to come to terms with: The vast majority of people aren't nearly as concerned with the bits of artifacts in your smugmug photos that drive you up the wall. They just plain aren't. Yes, there may be some who, like you and me, get their noses up to the screen in Andy's picture of the seagull taking some bread and don't like the artifacts that they see. By and large, those people know too that the prints probably won't have such an issue.

far and away the majority of stuff i've sold and licensed has been from shots just like the seagull, folks look at it on screen, then i sell a license for 500 prints

you're so right, mike - the average buyer understands that the web version is nowhere near the print version!

Mike Lane

andy wrote:

far and away the majority of stuff i've sold and licensed has been from shots just like the seagull, folks look at it on screen, then i sell a license for 500 prints

you're so right, mike - the average buyer understands that the web version is nowhere near the print version!

I was so heated the first time I saw those artifacts. I was putting posts in here (probably this very thread) emailing the smugmug help, you name it. But the more I think about it the more I realize that they are an acceptable tradeoff and really the only person that it really bothers is me.

I know people are upset about this issue just as I was. This exact same thread is getting repeated over and over again, people are threatening to leave smugmug all kinds of things. People have a right to be mad, their photos are their babies almost. Sometimes I think people (including myself) just need to look at the bigger picture.

They are trying to adjust the compression by trying to figure out a way to dynamically choose which images get what level of compression. With JPG compression, images made up of lots of changes from pixel to pixel will not compress easily but artifacts will not show up as well so you need to and can compress them more and images with broad areas of colors compress easily and also show artifacts a lot. The problem is determining if a picture is of a grassy field and can stand more compression or if it is a picture of a girl against a blue sky and doesn't need as much compression.

Just know that this is a topic that is on the SM guys' minds. They don't want to have to make us just live with something we don't like if they don't have to.

unsavory

andy wrote:

hiya unsavory, nice to see you.

since you resize, why not just resize to 800px max and allow originals? downsample as you see fit

Hi Andy, nice to see you too. The reason is because 800 is too small. If they had this same option on 1024 I would be much more willing to live with it. The reason I was downsizing to 1024 by the way, is I figured if I downsized the image myself the compression would be better than if Smugmug had downsized it from a 3096 x whatever photo because they wouldn't need to compress it as much. I turned out to be wrong. : They still apply their bad compression to a 1024 image.

I would absolutely love if Smugmug gave us the option to pay extra for images that weren't compressed so much. In other words if a JPEG quality 10 photo takes 60% more disk space and bandwidth, I would be willing to pay 60% more. Heck I would pay double what I am paying now. So the perfect compromise would be to allow that option to those that want it, and keep their current pricing for those that don't.

That's my 2 cents.

Mike Lane

unsavory wrote:

I would absolutely love if Smugmug gave us the option to pay extra for images that weren't compressed so much. In other words if a JPEG quality 10 photo takes 60% more disk space and bandwidth, I would be willing to pay 60% more. Heck I would pay double what I am paying now. So the perfect compromise would be to allow that option to those that want it, and keep their current pricing for those that don't.

That's my 2 cents.

Increasing the bandwidth requirements for some slows down the performance for all. It's not quite as easy as that.