WordPress.com

1. dirkrgently
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 1:37 PM

   I uploaded a picture to my blog today and I noticed that the image quality was degraded.

   http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/less-colors-for-man-pages/

   I tried a couple things like compressing the picture more, resizing, and using jpg instead of png but all the pictures look bad. The original is of good quality. I also noticed that my other pictures look bad too, for example on:

   http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2009/01/24/pci-pci-x-pci-express-oh-boy/

   Anyone else having this problem? Any thoughts on what i can do to fix it?

   The blog I need help with is linuxtidbits.wordpress.com.

2. thesacredpath
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 2:27 PM

   When you upload a larger image (one that is larger than it will be when it is put into a post) then wordpress does resizing and resampling and it is not too good at it.

   My suggestion is to not upload very large image like what comes out of your camera (example: 3072 × 2304 pixels). Downsize the image to something like 800 x 600 or perhaps 1024 x 768 with an image editing program and then upload that image. Then when wordpress resamples and resizes it to put it into a post at the size you choose to insert, it is not having to downsize it as far.

   In my experience, uploading at 800 x 600 seems to produce reasonable images in posts when they are downsized.

   Also for good color, make sure that when you save the images, you are saving them as sRGB and NOT Adobe RGB (1998). Adobe RGB is for print, not the web and the colors will be very muted with Adobe RGB when viewed on the web.

3. thesacredpath
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 3:35 PM

   You might also be interested in reading these two posts I did on images some time back:

   http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/image-editing-and-preparation-tips-part-1/
   http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/image-editing-and-preparation-tips-part-2/

4. thesacredpath
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 3:38 PM

   There is also this one which talks more about the image quality issues with wordpress resizing and resampling:

   http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/how-good-is-wordpress-at-resizing-and-resampling-your-images/

5. dirkrgently
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 5:10 PM

   Good tips thesacredpath. Always able to make the thumbs better. :) This appears to be a bigger problem. Pictures before looking alright. Looking at it bit more all the picture on the blog are degraded. Even images in comments, for example:

   http://linuxtidbits.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/ansi2html/#comment-1651

   Looking at the picture link directly though there isn't any problems:

   http://linuxtidbits.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/less-colors.png

   Any other thoughts?

6. thesacredpath
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 5:21 PM

   When you upload an image, wordpress uploads the original as is. It then creates the thumbnail and medium sizes itself with its software from the original (which makes them a second (or third) generation jpg. The large size if I remember correctly, is actually just a "resize" of the original that you uploaded. The greater the difference in size between the original of the "large" size for your theme, the poorer the quality is going to be, and each generation gets worse in quality since jpg is a lossy compression scheme.

   The avatars in comments are again resized from the original avatar size that a person uploads so again, there will always be a degradation in quality.

   My suggestion is always to do all of your sizing in an image editing program before uploading things. I have even at times uploaded two images: the big size that I want people to see when they click on the image in my post, and then an exact sized image for use in the post (medium, thumbnail, large or whatever size I happen to want in the post).

   It is very difficult for wordpress to achieve the quality of a dedicated image editing program. It's not like they can embed PhotoShop into wordpress. The thing is though that even free image editing programs such as "Gimp" typically will produce far better results than what wordpress will give you if you let them do the resizing and resampling.

7. thesacredpath
   Member
   Mar 23, 2009, 5:24 PM

   I will note though that in another thread a while ago that staff said that an upgrade to their image processing stuff was in the works so that the quality of the images would be better.

8. toddpartridge
   Member
   Mar 24, 2009, 3:37 AM

   Ah, good tips thesacredpath. Appreciate all the help, you helped me figure the problem. I'd been using the browser at the lab but these problems didn't exist from my desktop at home. The lab uses firefox which has a zooming feature. Turns out that someone at the lab also had also looked at my blog. Firefox has a zoom feature that's saved and zoom's the entire page - hence the degradation of pictures. Feel dumb. Probably liked to have thought of this. Again, appreciate thehelp.

9. dirkrgently
   Member
   Mar 24, 2009, 3:47 AM

   Oops, that's my real name. Oh well, my secret's out. :)

10. 1tess
    Moderator
    Mar 24, 2009, 3:56 AM

    tsp,
    "My suggestion is always to do all of your sizing in an image editing program before uploading things. I have even at times uploaded two images: the big size that I want people to see when they click on the image in my post, and then an exact sized image for use in the post (medium, thumbnail, large or whatever size I happen to want in the post)."
    good idea, but in my case who would want to look at a piece of dead beef in miso full-sized!! :-)
    On the other hand, someone asked about a non-food photo on my blog today, and I uploaded some full sized images to give him links to them—not inserted into the post. The post from toddpartridge does not mean that if I uploaded while zoomed in on Firefox means they will be downgraded, right?
    I think I answered my own question: wp.com is essentially "hosting" my full sized files without downgrading the images?

11. 1tess
    Moderator
    Mar 24, 2009, 3:56 AM

    tsp,
    "My suggestion is always to do all of your sizing in an image editing program before uploading things. I have even at times uploaded two images: the big size that I want people to see when they click on the image in my post, and then an exact sized image for use in the post (medium, thumbnail, large or whatever size I happen to want in the post)."
    good idea, but in my case who would want to look at a piece of dead beef in miso full-sized!! :-)
    On the other hand, someone asked about a non-food photo on my blog today, and I uploaded some full sized images to give him links to them—not inserted into the post. The post from toddpartridge does not mean that if I uploaded while zoomed in on Firefox means they will be downgraded, right?
    I think I answered my own question: wp.com is essentially "hosting" my full sized files without downgrading the images?

12. thesacredpath
    Member
    Mar 24, 2009, 6:03 AM

    When you upload an image, the full sized image is uploaded. That is the URL that will show up in the media library and such. Off of that image, wordpress also creates a thumbnail image file and a medium image file and most likely now also the "large image files. We never see those images in our image library, but they are there.

    The original full sized image is left just as it is.

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