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The problem isn't with the cameras, most of which are good.

It is with people who insist on using hopelessly outdated methods for using the internet. Like dial up.

The internet is about moving information. In the case of photographs, this usually means detail, which requires larger files.

If you are still on dial-up by choice, you need to rethink things.

No insults intended here, but using the equivalent of Packard technology here serves no useful purpose is, unlike our cars, is not enjoyable.

Forcing unrealistic standards on others so you can live in the past is the height of self centered conceit.

Having said this, before you have a hissy fit directed at me, rethink what you are asking all of us to do for you.

I lived on dial up for years on the grounds of economy. It may have been the dumbest thing I ever did.

When I ask for pictures for help, I want to see detail,
not pixels.

P.S.

One of the biggest problem I see with pictures is most cameras save the photos in JPG format with no compression, which makes the file size HUGE, and slow to load.

Actually, jpgs from small cameras are already highly compressed. In Photoshop, JPG compression is variable, from awful to very good in 100 steps. The better the quality, the bigger the file. Opinions vary widely on what constitutes acceptable quality.

Unfortunately until the entire USA joins the rest of the developed world in the 21st century--or even the 20th in some places, lots of folks have no choice but to use dial-up. This area where I am is a perfect example. In my small immediate area all is well. I can do cable, DSL or dialup. A mile or so down the road it's dialup or DSL only because the cable company doesn't think there is enough people to run their line across open space to service them. A couple of miles the other way is cable or dialup only because that area is too far from the phone exchange backend for DSL to work. 5 miles and further out until you get near the next town and it is dialup only.

Pat, the biggest problem is size. Hi-availablility dedicated web server space is VERY expensive to rent. So while beautiful super large picture are great for someone needing to see a small detail for their restoration, storing that picture is expensive for the small handful of users that extra large picture will be beneficial to.

The website her doesn't run on one of those cheapo $10 a month "unlimited" hosting plans. Cause those plans are not truly unlimited and have connection limitations would make it impractical to run a website like this on it. Trust me I started there and out grew those very quickly. A high availability web server requires bandwidth, lots of it, and that requires renting space in a datacenter. Neither of which is particularly cheap. When you are at that level you are paying a hefty sum for every gigabyte of storage and memory space.

So would I rather have 100 pictures of web viewing quality that many people may find useful, or 1 picture of high def that only a handful would in that same allotted server space? I'm going to have to go with the 100....more bang for the buck...literally. I am already spending over $1000 a year on web hosting fees, and I am not prepared to spend $2000 so we can host super large photos. If this website was for profit or was funded by a club it would be different as their may not be the same level of financial contraints.

Now that being said, if you want to include multi-mega pixel images in your posts, I invite you to store them on a photo-sharing service, and just link to them in your posts. This keeps the file load off the server here, and also makes the posts load faster for other folks.

Not sure what digital cameras you are using, but everyone I have used, and multitude of folks on the website that have had trouble uploads have all had cameras (standalone digital, phone based, etc) when the JPG files have zero compression on them.

Regards,

I understand your problem and agree with your solution. My irritation is with people who have the shoice but refuse to use it.


In the instance cited above, being on dial=up with no choice, I fell for you.

As to jpgs, I repeat: jpgs are by definition compressed. Convert your image to a tif to find out how compressed..... You will be stunned.

I usually use a Nikon D-300 and shoot 16 bit raw, which is an option that holds more detail and is more flexible in processing that jpgs. As with Packards, it is a larhgetopic with room for any number of opinions.

This is a big help for me on forums, as even my camera phones make pics that are 1mb each, and that's too big for a website. Most monitors can't display a pic in true super high resolution anyway. This makes it easy to resize them for anyone, and then upload. I usually do 1200*1024 which is decent for detail but ends up in files from 1/5 to 1/10th the size of the original!


Screen shot of the simple options:



Download:

http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/

Then, just right click on an image, go to resize image, and pick the size...click advanced to get to 1200*1024 and click resize original if you don't want it to make a resized duplicate....post here and done! Saves website space, easy for everyone to use, keeps kevin's bill down, and helps the webpages load quicker.