posting photos

mogue

Hello,
I'm about to try the 14-day trial and read about how to post images but still have a few questions for best quality/speed ratio. I plan on converting images to jpeg 10 for the sake of size. With that in mind
1) Is there an optimal pixel size?
2) Is there an optimal resolution, eg 72 or 90?
Thank you very much.


lucy

jfriend

mogue wrote:

Hello,
I'm about to try the 14-day trial and read about how to post images but still have a few questions for best quality/speed ratio. I plan on converting images to jpeg 10 for the sake of size. With that in mind
1) Is there an optimal pixel size?
2) Is there an optimal resolution, eg 72 or 90?
Thank you very much.


lucy

Do not change the number of pixels in your images. You should preserve the number of pixels as they came out of the camera and upload that. Do not resize your image. Quality level 10 refers to a JPEG compression level. You are correct to use level 10 as that is LAB quality without being overly huge. When I take images and prepare them for Smugmug, I set a desired image crop (this removes pixels) if the image needs it and then I do post processing to correct the image (color, brightness, etc...). I then save those changes as a JPEG compression level 10 and upload that directly to Smugmug. I never resize my images. The beauty of Smugmug's unlimited storage is that you don't have to compromise the quality of your images or the sizes that can be printed in order to save disk space.

Resolution (e.g. 72 ppi or 90 ppi stamped on a JPEG) does not matter to Smugmug. All that matters is that you retain the original pixel count as they came from the camera without any resizing.

When you print from Smugmug, you tell Smugmug (and consequently, the printer) what size printed image you want. That is what then determines the pixels per inch (your pixel count divided by the size of your image is the resulting dpi that the printing software has to start with). The printing software will then decide if it needs to upsample or downsample to match the printer's native resolution. That is all done automatically for us by the printer's software and is a high quality operation.

Many people are confused by the fields in a JPEG image called dpi and image size. Those are just labels on the image. They are indicative of what pixels per inch you would have if you printed at that size, but they are just labels and it does not affect your image in any way if you change those without changing the pixels. When you actually go to print at a given print size, the only thing that really matters is the size print you ask for and the number and quality of pixels in your image. The actual pixels per inch when you print is determined by the number of pixels in your image divided by the dimension of the print you asked for and has nothing to do with the ppi stamped into the JPEG image. I know this is confusing, but I have printed hundreds of images and I NEVER do anything to do the ppi field in Photoshop. I work in image pixels and in printed output size only.

simplykristi

I upload the originals. I use a Canon G6 digital camera.

Kristi

http://www.simplykristi.smugmug.com/

mogue

posting photos 2

jfriend wrote:

Do not change the number of pixels in your images. You should preserve the number of pixels as they came out of the camera and upload that. Do not resize your image. Quality level 10 refers to a JPEG compression level. You are correct to use level 10 as that is LAB quality without being overly huge. When I take images and prepare them for Smugmug, I set a desired image crop (this removes pixels) if the image needs it and then I do post processing to correct the image (color, brightness, etc...). I then save those changes as a JPEG compression level 10 and upload that directly to Smugmug. I never resize my images. The beauty of Smugmug's unlimited storage is that you don't have to compromise the quality of your images or the sizes that can be printed in order to save disk space.

Resolution (e.g. 72 ppi or 90 ppi stamped on a JPEG) does not matter to Smugmug. All that matters is that you retain the original pixel count as they came from the camera without any resizing.

When you print from Smugmug, you tell Smugmug (and consequently, the printer) what size printed image you want. That is what then determines the pixels per inch (your pixel count divided by the size of your image is the resulting dpi that the printing software has to start with). The printing software will then decide if it needs to upsample or downsample to match the printer's native resolution. That is all done automatically for us by the printer's software and is a high quality operation.

Many people are confused by the fields in a JPEG image called dpi and image size. Those are just labels on the image. They are indicative of what pixels per inch you would have if you printed at that size, but they are just labels and it does not affect your image in any way if you change those without changing the pixels. When you actually go to print at a given print size, the only thing that really matters is the size print you ask for and the number and quality of pixels in your image. The actual pixels per inch when you print is determined by the number of pixels in your image divided by the dimension of the print you asked for and has nothing to do with the ppi stamped into the JPEG image. I know this is confusing, but I have printed hundreds of images and I NEVER do anything to do the ppi field in Photoshop. I work in image pixels and in printed output size only.

Hi John,
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. Sorry to be dense, but still a coupla questions. First, as I didn't make clear, I'm only interested in quality of uploaded photos for my web page, not printing since I do that myself. Since I'll only be uploading edited photos, they've already been converted to TIFF and extensively edited, often including resized, so I won't be able to upload the number of pixels as they came out of the camera. I have the original jpegs on many of them, but since they look nothing like the edited version, what to do?
Also, I understand jpeg will make the images smaller and speedier to upload, but will downsizing the resolution, (eg from 300ppi to 90ppi) make any appreciable difference in speed? By the way I used a Canon 30D and work on an iMacG4.
Thank you so much. Digital Grin support is awesome!


lucy

jfriend

mogue wrote:

Hi John,
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. Sorry to be dense, but still a coupla questions. First, as I didn't make clear, I'm only interested in quality of uploaded photos for my web page, not printing since I do that myself. Since I'll only be uploading edited photos, they've already been converted to TIFF and extensively edited, often including resized, so I won't be able to upload the number of pixels as they came out of the camera. I have the original jpegs on many of them, but since they look nothing like the edited version, what to do?
Also, I understand jpeg will make the images smaller and speedier to upload, but will downsizing the resolution, (eg from 300ppi to 90ppi) make any appreciable difference in speed? By the way I used a Canon 30D and work on an iMacG4.
Thank you so much. Digital Grin support is awesome!


lucy

When you upload an image, Smugmug automatically makes a whole bunch of sizes of that image that are used in various forms of web display. At a minimum, it creates two sizes of thumbs and the small, medium and large viewing sizes. If you upload anything larger than the large size (which is 400x600, then Smugmug will automatically create all these sizes from your upload size. If you upload something smaller trhan 400x600, then what you upload will be used as the Large size and then the smaller sizes will be made from that.

If you are never going to print from Smugmug, never going to want offer digital downloads for sale and never going to want to share high resolution printable images with friends or family, then you have two choices:

1) You can upload your highest resolution (best quality) JPEG image and let Smugmug automatically make the various sizes for you from that. Most Smugmug customers do this because it's the easiest. In your case, you would take your best quality TIFF image and then just do a Save As JPEG at quality level 10. No resizing. No changing of ppi.

or

2) You can create your own "Large" size image (400x600) by resizing on your own computer and then upload that. Smugmug will then use that as the Large-sized and Original-sized images and create the smaller versions from that.

Please, please, please remember that "ppi" has NOTHING to do with web display. You MUST think in pixels as that is all a browser deals in. So, if you want to resize your images before uploading, you change the number of pixels in the image. Ignore ppi. In Photoshop, you go to Image/Image Size, turn the [X] Resample Image checkbox on, turn the [X] Constrain proportions checkbox on, then change the top width and/or height to a smaller number of pixels. Ignore the document size settings in this dialog as they have absolutely nothing to do with web display.

The advantages of option 1) above are:

• You retain the flexibility to order prints yourself
• You can let friends/family order printers
• You can share printable resolution images with friends/family
• You can offer digital downloads for sale
• You can zoom in on the high quality version to see fine detail that can't be seen in the web-sized versions.

The advantages of option 2) above are:

• Faster uploads because you are uploading smaller files
• You control the resizing process for the larger size (sharpening, etc...) rather than relying on the automated Smugmug process
• You can't accidentally forget to secure your high resolution images because they aren't even on your site.

I, personally upload high-resolution versions of my images because I frequently want to let friends/family either order prints themselves, download the high resolution images and make their own prints or add the images to their own digital albums.