Degraded Image Quality & Slowness

tiaw

I wonder if anyone can help me.

Approx 70% of photos that I upload to smugmug encounter subtle but noticeable image degredation, especially around the edges. This often shows itself as 'speckling' next to edges, and very obvious degredation when there are large areas of the same colour. It makes no sense, as the original images look perfectly smooth.

Furthermore, I have uploaded photos from a variety of different cameras and sources, and with a variety of different resolutions, and there appears to be no relationship between this degredation and any particular resolution or camera - it's just across the board.

I also should state reluctantly but crucially, that this does not happen on flickr, nor on Wordpress, but I have encountered this problem before when I used to use photobucket.

For me this is a serious issue because
1) I'm paying to host my images here
2) I'm naturally very eager to display them in their full potential
3) It is very frustrating when a paid service renders images to what appears to be a degraded quality.

I should state also that the problem is even worse when I utilise picnik.

One final thing I would like to query is the extreme slowness with which smugmug seems to be operating in the last couple of days. The rest of the internet seems to be working fine, so I don't believe it's my connection.

Andy

Hi! I can help. Can I have a link to an image that is 'degraded' to you? I would like to inspect it. You can reply right here, thanks!


As to Speed, we can help there, too - please write our Support Heroes on that issue so we can do some diagnostics one-on-one with you.

tiaw

I've since removed and reuploaded images countless times in countless different resolutions in order to try and improve the problem, and thankfully most were solved by doing this (although it did take an unneccessarily large amount of time to correct).

Nonetheless, a few examples remain. A good one would be 'Tokyo at night': http://tiaw.smugmug.com/Japan/Tokyo2/13079927_3pw3V#947896784_QDjr6-A-LB
In this one (on my monitor at least) there is a fair amount of degredation around the horizon, where the city meets the sky - and just generally around edges, such as the Tokyo Tower. The original image, both on my computer and on flickr, have no such issue.

Andy

tiaw wrote: »

I've since removed and reuploaded images countless times in countless different resolutions in order to try and improve the problem, and thankfully most were solved by doing this (although it did take an unneccessarily large amount of time to correct).

Nonetheless, a few examples remain. A good one would be 'Tokyo at night': http://tiaw.smugmug.com/Japan/Tokyo2/13079927_3pw3V#947896784_QDjr6-A-LB
In this one (on my monitor at least) there is a fair amount of degredation around the horizon, where the city meets the sky - and just generally around edges, such as the Tokyo Tower. The original image, both on my computer and on flickr, have no such issue.

OK Cool - and exactly how did you process this image (what software) and how did you upload it (what uploader?).

tiaw

Andy wrote: »

OK Cool - and exactly how did you process this image (what software) and how did you upload it (what uploader?).

I processed it in Photoshop. The original image size was giving me even more problems, so I reduced the resolution to the maximum size you see now. I used the old uploader, as Java wasn't working on my computer at that time - although i've since been using the new Java uploader and still the problems persist with other images.

Andy

Oh and, what browser are you using?

Andy

I'm not seeing any degradation here



Can you please point me to what you are seeing? Thanks!

tiaw

The image I attached is naturally degraded, but it's just for reference purposes, so you can see the area's i'm talking about.

i.e. just as the lights meet the sky, and also around the bluer part of the sky.

I've viewed it on several different browsers now, and it's all the same.

Andy

tiaw wrote: »

The image I attached is naturally degraded, but it's just for reference purposes, so you can see the area's i'm talking about.

i.e. just as the lights meet the sky, and also around the bluer part of the sky.

I've viewed it on several different browsers now, and it's all the same.

Attaching via Dgrin won't show it to me. I linked your image from your SmugMug gallery, not seeing though... can you show me the same image on another site so I can compare? We really take this very seriously, and billions of images later, we don't ever get complaints like this. I want to help

tiaw

I very much appreciate your help.

Here is the same image on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61323690@N00/728996126/sizes/l/in/set-72157623730354289/

The contrast is not quite as strong as this, but the image (to me) looks a lot smoother, while still retaining moderate sharpness.

P.S. Could it possibly be my monitor settings?

Andy

PHoto on flickr is private, can't see it.

tiaw

Ok, sorry, should work now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61323690@N00/728996126/sizes/l/in/set-72157623730354289/

Andy

I'm trying really hard to see any degradation, can't see it, can you point it out?

tiaw

I'm not really sure what I can add on top of what i've already said. I have shown my girlfriend the same link, and she, like you sees no problem. So it could be some issue related to my computer or monitor. The problem is, I haven't a clue what that could be.

Anyway, thanks for taking a look at that for me. Seems it could just be me.

tiaw

OK, I believe i've finally figured out a way to demonstrate this.
Below is the image as I see it on my monitor, and below that is a close up of a badly affected area.





In advance, this is not how it appears on my original.