Photo Size

[Ratsima]

I wonder if it’s time to upgrade the form's limit on photo size. It is currently 200K (?) which must have been established in the early days of digital photography and dial-up Internet access. In these days of multi-megapixel smart phone cameras and ubiquitous high speed Internet, 200K seems pitifully stingy.

This is the only forum in which I participate which has such a paltry limit.

I posted a few photos his morning, two of which had to be shrunk to postage stamp size in order to meet the size limit, even with JPEG quality set to only 70%.

I understand that it is the forum’s goal to make money for the owners and storage costs money. However, online storage is a heck of a lot cheaper than it was when the 200K limit was set.

If some members having slow Internet is really a concern, then set the form to display thumbnails inline which expand to full size when selected.

FWIW, I use the iOS app "Batch Resize" to resize batches of photos on my iPhone/iPad. Works a charm; even at under 200K.

[huahin4ever]

I couldn't concur more. It's a stone age requirement.

[Big Boy]

Why don't you give our clever IT guys some idea what size you are looking at. They aren't ogres, and will oblige if they can, or give reasons why they can't. However, they are out of town for a few days, so the response might be a little delayed.

'Upgrade' and 'stone age' is not really specifying what you want. I'm sure, if it means more posts, they will do what they can.

[Ratsima]

A megabyte per photo would be nice. 320K would accommodate an uncompressed VGA (640x480) sized image.

It would be interesting to know the reason for the current size limit. Money? Bandwidth? Storage?

[Big Boy]

I'm sure the tech guys had good reason. They are back in a few days. If they don't respond, give them a nudge

[Ratsima]

How does one nudge a tech guy?

[J.J.B.]

On other forums, you can load a picture of any size and they get resized and presumably compressed automatically during the upload.

[Ratsima]

It depends on the forum software. phpBB, the software used by this forum, doesn’t have built in tools for image resizing and, AFAIK, there are no plugins or add-ons that do the job. The forum admin can set limits for the image file size and image width, but that’s about it.

IMHO this is one reason why forums are losing active users while platforms like FB are so popular. People like to upload photos, but only if it’s easy.

I think there would be more eyes on ads if it were easier to upload photos.

[Big Boy]

How does one nudge a tech guy?

A sledgehammer

Seriously, if you've not had a response in a week or so, just a simple reminder on this thread should suffice.

[caller]

For what it's worth from a proud non techie, is there any need to have the attach file/pic facility anymore? I do use it on occasions but only when I can't be bothered to upload elsewhere first.

I belong to a watch forum where pics are the lifeblood of the activity there and like all such forums, they only accept pics from 3rd party hosting sites. They even provide their own hosting site, for a fiver a year.

[Ratsima]

It’s a matter of convenience. If I had to upload elsewhere and then post a link here I probably wouldn’t bother. Then again, I don’t post much here because the procedure is so awkward.

If you want eyes on your ads then you have to make things as simple as possible. As I mentioned, this is one reason why FB and IG are so popular. Posting photos is idiot simple.

[buksida]

I've boosted file size to 500kb and dimensions to 1500px which is more than adequate as evidenced from my trip report.

[Ratsima]

Thank you.

[Ralfredo]

which is more than adequate as evidenced from my trip report.

The problem is not the image quality. The problem is the hassle with resizing the pictures.

[buksida]

Not really - there are hundreds of pieces of software that will batch resize photos in a few seconds with the click of a button.

As mentioned above the forum software is limited with no built in function to do it so they can't allow uploading 10Mb raw images from phones and cameras as the server space, which is limited to begin with and has associated costs, will be full in no time.