Even when keeping the Original picture size, Quality is degrading...

MosheCohen

For some pictures, I really want to keep the quality of the picture. I looked at the picture from my hard drive, and looked at the same picture from smugmug with /O on the URL so that I can see the original resolution.

I looked at both pictures on the same screen. Both are at the same level of zoom (100%).

There is a significant quality degradation.

Since Smugmug preserves my picture resolution, we know that SMugmug doesn't compress JPEGs. I also know that when I download the original file, I am getting the same file that I uploaded back. So my assumption is that SMugmug may be compressing the image to a lower JPG quality without changing the resolution in order to speed up the display on the client (my web browser)...

Is there a way to turn this off?

Or is this a feature kept only for the Professional accounts?

Please help.

Thanks!

M.

zacHer0

Hi Moshe,

I responded to your email a little while back. The image is showing up perfectly fine for me on my Firefox browser, nice and crisp, even at Original size. I think that your browser might be lowering the image quality for some reason - you might want to poke around in the settings. Did you try the Original image in Internet Explorer like I suggested?

Ferguson

MosheCohen wrote: »

I looked at both pictures on the same screen. Both are at the same level of zoom (100%).

This phrase caught my eye. Are you comparing the same resolution image?

Smugmug does build different image sizes. Let's say start with something 4000x6000 pixels (making up sizes for simplicity). If you display that on your home monitor, it is reducing the size just enough to display. So if you displayed on a 1000 x 1500 monitor, it will reduce each 4 pixels to one for display.

Now let's say you upload that at Smugmug. It will build a half dozen or so standard sizes all smaller. When you display that image, it looks at room on the screen, and will grab the one closest (+/- rules you put in the settings for max size to display) and show that. Depending on the type of display, it may be larger (and so reduced in size by your monitor) or smaller (and stay smaller, or perhaps zoom up). Generally speaking except for either very large screens or very small images, or if you ask for the "original", you are not seeing the original format but a downsized one.

So if you are doing something to display a smaller image, and zooming in to make it the same size as your home copy, it will look degraded. If you set up Smugmug to only allow display up to "L" size (anything other than "Original"), it may look smaller.

It's important to compare the same resolution (pixel dimensions) AND display it at the same relative size, to compare. Different browsers will show you actual size in different ways, but compare pixel width and get them the same then make them the same size on your screen.

My apologies if this is obvious and you are already doing it.