Images in posts.

[Huntress]

100K is a bit too big IMNSHO.  You can get a decent image out of a 50K jpg.

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

How about making something like this? Image Optimizer That way it makes it easier for a user to optimize. And choose which image they want uploaded to page. As for the 100kb size, I think that is a reasonable size, and any larger should get approval. Remember these images will be linked to not displayed directly on page. So worrying about page load will not be as much of an issue, because even dial-up user will know that when clicking on an image link it will take a bit longer to load, but at least they dont have to wait for all images to load and slow down page rendering if the image were directly displayed.

[Huntress]

If the images are to be offsite them size won't matter at all.  As long as it doesn't cause bloating of the pages.

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

I thought it was made clear we will not be using offsite images? That images will be uploaded to ERT.

[Huntress]

My mistake, I read your above post wrong.  A good clear pic can be uploaded at 50K.  If the pics are to be uploaded and inked to the size should be kept down if we want to archived threads for searching later.  What kind of storage are we looking at here?  How many threads are going to have multi uploads of pics?  Eventually they do add up.  I'm just thinking in terms of the long-run here.

[Esopo]

C_M,

That was a cool optimizer!
I guess we could have a standard were the system gives it a 30% jpg compression by default, and the alternative to play with the rates for anyone interested.

Huntress,

Yes, the upload directory will probably get very big with time, but the amount of threads that need stuff uploaded is minimal.

And a good, perfeclty cropped and correctly optimized pic would be within the boundaries of 50ks, but we shouldn't expect all our visitors to go through that trouble, or even be capable of doing so.

Plus, one acceptable upload would be a screenshot of a 1600x1200 screen, and will require a lot more than 50ks even with a 40% compression.

[nicholassolutions]

CM -- Good thinking. That would be a good idea both in terms of storage and in terms of creating webpages with reasonable download times.

>>>Plus, one acceptable upload would be a screenshot of a 1600x1200 screen, and will require a lot more than 50ks even with a 40% compression.<<<
True. For example: http://www.nicholassolutions.com/scrnsht56k.jpg
is a 56k screenshot reduced in size to about 80% and optimized for the web with photoshop, and I would say that is about at the limit of acceptable (any worse may make the site look 'unprofessional' to many people). What's more, not everyone has a program like photoshop, and most people who do don't know how to use it. (Also, that image is basically all one color -- other images might not compress so well)

>>> Eventually they do add up. I'm just thinking in terms of the long-run here.<<<
Everything adds up eventually, but just to put a face on this beast:
Assume every 10th thred has 300k of images after optimization with something like CM showed above. Then after 2G threads:
(2 000 000 * 300 kb) / 10 = 57 Gb
That's a lot, but for a server holding almost exclusively text, it should be a non-issue.

-Matt

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

Storage space for hosting is very cheap now. Reason why Yahoo, MSN and Gmail are allowing such large mailboxes. Even if the images each 2GB which will take quite awhile, it will not be a problem at all down the road. Matt and I were discussing on how to make the optimizer, thinking of using GD/ImageMagick or a commandline executable to make the different optimized images to choose from. Will be looking more into it and will be posting a thread in the PHP forum.

[nicholassolutions]

OK, I did some *very* preliminary monkeying around, and I think this should be pretty easy (and we won't have to turn off safe_mode C_M =) ...it's all in GD).
Have a look here:
http://www.nicholassolutions.com/EE/imopt_main.php
Be patient -- there is a lot of data to transfer -- and forgive the folder name; it was from days gone by when I was actually dedicated enough to EE to make a folder to test scripts in. The script takes a 310k image, and optimizes it down to about 25k with various steps inbetween (much like the link C_M sent above).

I propose the following, which I think takes care of all the problems mentioned so far: The user uploads an image. The Mentor in charge of the thread must approve it and make sure it contains no objectionable content before it becomes visible on the site. During the review, the Mentor sees a page like the one above, maybe with some additional options to resize the dimensions etc., and picks the smallest file that has acceptable quality for the application at hand. The script optimizes the image accordingly, deletes the original, and also creates a thumbnail in the actual post which links to the optimized image. What do you think?

Matt

[CrYpTiC_MauleR]

You are my hero =o), does it support different filetypes? Mainly GIF, PNG and JPG. Come online btw.

[nicholassolutions]

You are my hero =o), does it support different filetypes? Mainly GIF, PNG and JPG. Come online btw.

Thanks CM ;) It should work for jpg, png, gif, and even bmp although I doubt we'll need that one. I'm a day late, but I'll look for you online in a few =)

[nicholassolutions]

By the way, this is probably better off in PHP, but since I have your attention:
if we ever need to use imagemagick, we may be able to do it without turning off safemode using this: http://pecl.php.net/package/imagick

[COBOLdinosaur]

I propose the following, which I think takes care of all the problems mentioned so far: The user uploads an image. The Mentor in charge of the thread must approve it and make sure it contains no objectionable content before it becomes visible on the site. During the review, the Mentor sees a page like the one above, maybe with some additional options to resize the dimensions etc., and picks the smallest file that has acceptable quality for the application at hand. The script optimizes the image accordingly, deletes the original, and also creates a thumbnail in the actual post which links to the optimized image. What do you think?

okey we can amment my proposal to incorporate that. In essence, images are mageged by the Mentors.  I have no problem with that.  I think we have a responsible group and no wnat a slow site.  so the original proposal with limtis heavey content with specifc responsibility for image management vested in the Mentors?

[nicholassolutions]

sound good to me =)

[nicholassolutions]

Actually, realizing how much of a pain in the neck it will be for Mentors to have to optimize every image, I would offer the following (admittedly pedantic) amendment:

Users upload, are asked to optimize themselves to save Mentors the trouble, then mentors see the uploaded image, which they can optimize if need be.