Posting Images to the forum - Feedback Thread!

[Reciever]

 

Good Evening everyone!

 

My good friend @Hiew has been making adjustments to the mechanisms involved for submitting pictures to the forum.

 

I would like for all members who have interest to post pictures here and grant us some feedback in this process so we may better tune the forum to our preferences.

@Mr. Fox@Papusan@electrosoft@johnksss You blokes are our worst offenders! So naturally I would like to invite you all to discuss that topic here so as to keep the threads you enjoy on their individual topics.

 

Thanks again everyone, I do look forward to your feedback. Happy Posting!

 

-Chris

[Mr. Fox]

OK, I will post a couple of samples to see how the forum image management handles them. In both cases I will include images with a variety of text on light and dark backgrounds to test for clarity and readability of text, which is the more problematic situation with screenshots. Definitely more of an issue viewing photos and images with text than those without. 

 

This first screenshot is from my work computer. It has three 1920x1080 monitors, so a full-screen image is 5760x1080.

 

[Mr. Fox]

Now, here is a 2560x1440 screenshot with lots of text.

[Mr. Fox]

Both of the above images seem better than before. Did some settings get changed to mitigate the degradation of text readability and image quality. Both images will pop-out when clicked once. Clicking 3 times opens the image in a window of its own. The third mouse click will display the image in original resolution.

[Reciever]

According to the announcement he has temporarily removed all limitations in regards to file sizes.

 

I can still see a little bit of distortion, but I cant be certain if this is due to a particular file medium (JPEG vs PNG) or perhaps something I may be plainly ignorant to. Particularly around text, I will do a little reading on my own in the interim.

 

Thanks again! The more feedback the better!
 

[Custom90gt]

They look fine to me, the important note will be the limitation of 50MB of storage space for each user. There will likely be a donator role with increased storage space. 

[Hiew]

They're actually legible now with minor compression artifacts when you zoom in. I can remove compression all-together, but that can generally speaking be a poor decision for web content.

 

I'm looking at adding a module that would allow a media gallery and downloads as well. Still not sure about those yet.

[Reciever]

They look good to me, if we go beyond that we may need to limit it to specific threads/ sub-forums that would warrant that sort of thing, but we would also want to prevent nefarious actors from dumping unto the forum.

 

[No0B]

Invision seems to support WebP compression. I don't know whether that also applies to user-uploaded images, but if so, maybe that would be a good compromise between quality/legibility and filesize. WebP is supported quite widely in modern browsers.

[Reciever]

17 hours ago, No0B said:

Invision seems to support WebP compression. I don't know whether that also applies to user-uploaded images, but if so, maybe that would be a good compromise between quality/legibility and filesize. WebP is supported quite widely in modern browsers.

Thanks for sharing, I'll add it to the topics I wish to cover in the next meetup hopefully sometime this weekend.

[John Ratsey]

I would like more control over how images are presented when I upload them. There seems to be upsizing when embedding into a discussion. I've just posted something here and the graphics are much larger than needed to convey the information so they take up more space than needed. I tried resizing before uploading but it didn't make a significant difference. The first graphic (BatteryInfoView) was 785 pixels when uploaded which is legible but not too big but it's displaying as much bigger.

 

Am I missing something here? Can I embed a thumbnail image in the appropriate place which will enlarge to the uploaded size when clicked on?

[Hiew]

Interesting, that's some odd behaviour to me. As far as I can tell, the forum software will only change the size of large images.

 

 

When composing your posts, you may double-click on the image to resize it.

 

 

Tree picture below is 4928 x 3264 2.8 mb

 

I can take the same uploaded photo and resize it in post

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Hiew
Showing tree image resize

[John Ratsey]

3 hours ago, Hiew said:

Interesting, that's some odd behaviour to me. As far as I can tell, the forum software will only change the size of large images.

 

When composing your posts, you may double-click on the image to resize it.

 

Thanks. I've been right-clicking on an image and looking for an option but didn't think of double-clicking. Nonetheless, the image as displayed on my screen (2560 pixels wide) seems to have been upscaled as instead of occupying about 30% of my screen width, it's nearer 60%.

 

Embedded thumbnails which will enlarge when clicked on would be my preference if the forum software supports this feature.

[Steerpike]

On 4/13/2022 at 4:32 AM, John Ratsey said:

I would like more control over how images are presented when I upload them. There seems to be upsizing when embedding into a discussion. I've just posted something here and the graphics are much larger than needed to convey the information so they take up more space than needed. I tried resizing before uploading but it didn't make a significant difference. The first graphic (BatteryInfoView) was 785 pixels when uploaded which is legible but not too big but it's displaying as much bigger.

 

Am I missing something here? Can I embed a thumbnail image in the appropriate place which will enlarge to the uploaded size when clicked on?

I've had the exact same observation - smaller screenshots appear to be upsized, causing them to look blurry, and occupy far too much physical space in the post.  Unlike you (@John Ratsey), I'd prefer to keep them as embedded, 'in-line' images and not thumbnails, if possible.  

 

I do know that, when I post screen shots in outlook emails, the 'DPI' setting of the image (as opposed to, or in addition to, the resolution) has a significant impact on the appearance of the image in the body of the email. Don't know if this forum software is also being influenced by this.  Here's a screen shot of the LG Control Center', captured using alt-Prt-scrn, then pasted into IrfanView for further manipulation:  

 

 

 

Image is 1154 x 740 pixels, 180 DPI (as reported by IrfanVIew). It looks 'big' here in the forum, to me, compared to the original app on my screen, and therefore less sharp. 

 

If I resample it down to 600 x 385 in IrfanView, still 180 DPI, it changes to this: 

 

 

Now, this is appearing smaller in the post than it is on my screen, but I put that down to the effects of High-DPI scaling as performed by Windows. This is certainly 'reasonable', and strikes me as quite appropriate. It just means I have to paste everything into IrfanView first, resample it (down), then paste here (which I do most times anyway, just to crop out useless info). 

 

Next, I tried pasting the first image above (the bigger one) and then changing its properties in the forum itself, by double-clicking on it ... (I just read the last post that gives that tip). It looked identical to the image above (also 600 x ...) so no need to paste it here. 

 

So here is another screen shot, this time, one that is originally well below 1000 pixels wide ...

 

 

The original was 730 x 542, but pasting it here makes it look much bigger (and therefore, a bit 'blurry'/less sharp).  If I double-click it in the forum post, I see that it has properties as follows:  730 x 542 - same as the original.  So that doesn't explain why it's looking so much bigger here in the forum. If I paste it a second time, and then set properties to 600 x ... in the forum, it looks like this: 

 

 

My conclusion is - the forum seems to be resizing 'bigger' images (>1000 pixels) to 1000 pixels; it does not appear to be resizing images that are less than 1000 pixels wide, BUT - some 'other' feature is causing smaller images (< 1000 pixels wide?) to appear significantly bigger. But I suspect this has everything to do with a) my native screen resolution (2560 x 1600) and b) my 'windows scaling factor' (currently 150%). 

 

I think in-line graphics are still better than thumbnails, but perhaps we can have a choice? 

 

(NOTE - this is meant to be the end of the post; but an image of the LG Control Center keeps appearing at the end of the post, as viewed by me. I keep 'editing' the post, and deleting it, but it just re-appears each time). So the image that may be immediately below this text is bogus and should not be here .... 

 

[Hiew]

 

I'm at a loss here since I don't seem to understand and want to fix the issue for you. The small images do not appear bigger to me and do not scale up. They're the same pixel density and dimensions as the copy I have on my computer. I have two monitors: one 1440p and one 1080p scaling is at 100%.

 

Please try changing your windows scaling to 100% as this may resolve the odd behaviour you're seeing? I figure its either that or the maximum displayed image inline which is 1000x750. If you click on the image it will show the full size if it fits on your screen, then click on it again and it will display without scaling down.

 

 

[Steerpike]

I've just set scaling to 100% on my laptop (it was at 150%). My laptop screen is 2560 x 1600, so setting the scale to 100% renders it virtually unusable for me, as my eyesight isn't that great, but I can just about read what I'm typing here and will leave it this way just for this reply.  

 

There's definitely something going on with how 'scaling' affects images. When I launch the same LG Control Center now (compared to before, as reported in my previous response), and use alt-print-screen, and then paste it into IrfanView, the image is now about 770 x 492 (before it was 1154 x 740). (I say 'about' because alt-prt-scrn is capturing a bit of the background now, some new weird behavior I'm seeing due to windows 11 it seems, so I crop it ever-so-slightly - but it's only a few pixels). And when I paste it into this thread ... 

 

 

It is IDENTICAL in size to how the 'actual application' is displaying on my screen. By this, I mean - I can alt-tab to the LG Control Center app, and align it with the image in tis post, and one sits on top of the other exactly.  

 

Previously, when scaling was at 150%, the LG Control Center was bigger (took up a larger percentage of the screen), but the version that got pasted in the thread was 'even bigger'.   I'll switch back to 150% scaling and do some more testing, after posting this. 

 

===============

Edit - I just set scaling back to 150% (phew, I was getting a headache trying to work at 100%!).  The image pasted above, while I was at 100%, has now grown in size (obviously, it has scaled up). And when I now bring the actual LG Control Center app to the front, and align it, it still matches exactly what is pasted above.   BUT - if I do a new 'copy / paste' of that same image, it is bigger: 

 

 

And looks less crisp due to be 'overly upscaled'. 

 

The image on the clipboard, as viewed in IrfanView, reflects the smaller of the two.  So here's what seems to be happening (this is very confusing!) - when scaling is 100%, everything works as expected; an image on screen that is copy/pasted lands in the thread 'as expected' - visually matches the original.  But when scaling is 150%, an image on screen (which is obviously somewhat bigger now since that's what scaling is meant to do - make things bigger) that is copy/pasted lands in the thread 'even bigger' - visually ends up bigger than the image it came from. The problem seems to be occurring somewhere between the clipboard and the 'paste' action into the forum, since the clipboard version (as seen with IrfanView) reflects the 'actual on-screen' image. 

 

Trying to state this another way:
Case 1 - scaling 100%

Image on-screen is 'small'; Image pasted to clipboard is 'small'; image pasted to forum is 'small' - they all match. 
Case 2 - scaling 150%

Image on-screen is 'medium'; image pasted to clipboard is 'medium'; image pasted to forum is 'big' - the forum version is bigger than the on-screen and clipboard versions. 

 

I suspect this is not anything the forum software can control.  And since it's only affecting those of us who scale, I'm perfectly happy to keep doing what I've been doing for a while - resampling my screen captures so they don't appear so large before pasting into the forum. 

 

[Aaron44126]

@Steerpike

What you are describing is a pretty common issue for screen shots when the scaling ratio is higher than 100%, in any web situation.  I've run into this myself.  The forum doesn't know what scaling ratio your screen shot was captured at, so it just assumes 100%.  If the screen shot has 150% scaling then it will come out on the forum 50% too big.  You'd have to manually shrink it down accordingly (divide the pixel dimensions by 1.5).  Assuming that the forum doesn't actually downscale the image (it does not appear that it does) then it will still look sharp to other visitors who are using 150% scaling, and it will at least not appear to be blown up to users who are using 100% scaling.

[Steerpike]

7 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

@Steerpike

What you are describing is a pretty common issue for screen shots when the scaling ratio is higher than 100%, in any web situation.  I've run into this myself.  The forum doesn't know what scaling ratio your screen shot was captured at, so it just assumes 100%.  If the screen shot has 150% scaling then it will come out on the forum 50% too big.  You'd have to manually shrink it down accordingly (divide the pixel dimensions by 1.5).  Assuming that the forum doesn't actually downscale the image (it does not appear that it does) then it will still look sharp to other visitors who are using 150% scaling, and it will at least not appear to be blown up to users who are using 100% scaling.

I did some more testing/playing around today, but rather than clarifying anything, I'm confusing myself even more!  Let me re-state my observations, this time with actual numbers and a smaller subject image, and see if I can explain it better.  I also need to create a test image to start with, since 'apps' seems to take it upon themselves to resize themselves when I scale the screen. 

 

For this test, I'm first setting my scaling to 100%. 

 

So here is a 400x200 pixel image I created in photoshop (very creative ...). 

 

 

When I look at the image in IrfanVIew (or mspaint), it's the exact same size on the screen as it is in this post. 

 

And when I double-click the image here in the post, while in edit mode, it says the image is 400x200.  All makes perfect sense so far. 

 

Now I will set my scaling to 150%. 

 

 

At 150% scaling, the image above is now bigger, obviously. But double-clicking it in the post still suggests 400x200 (properties), which also makes sense in some ways, but the 'properties' no longer reflect 'actual' from my (150% scaled) perspective. If I use IrfanView to resample the original image from 400x200 to 600x300, the image above matches the 600x300 version exactly. So the image in the post has been scaled up from 400x200 to 600x300, which sort-of makes sense when you ask for 150% scaling.  

 

Next, I will copy / paste that 400x200 image again into the forum (while I'm at 150% scaling): 

 

 

The image is the same size in the post as the original above.  The image properties (double-click in the post, in edit mode) still say 400x200. When I open the image in IrfanView (or MSPaint), even though I'm scaled 'overall' to 150%, the image is presented unscaled - still only 400x200, and therefore, much smaller than what I see above in this post (I think this is something unique to image editors). 

 

So this all makes perfect sense, and does not match the behavior I saw yesterday with the screenshots ... so I'm more confused now than before! 

 

UPDATE - I think the reason for the different behaviors yesterday and today is that yesterday, I was using 'Alt-Prt-Scrn' to copy something from the screen, whereas today I'm using 'edit / copy' within an image editor to get the image. My guess is, 'edit/copy' within an image editor is intentionally ignoring any 'scale' settings; it is faithfully retaining the dimensions of the image. Alt-Prt-Scrn is just grabbing whatever it sees on the screen, reflecting its 'actual' (scaled) appearance. 

[John Ratsey]

@Steerpike's studies have prompted me to do my own tests (same 17" screen as @Steerpike but set to 175% scaling) comparing a window capture (alt+PrtSc) with an image captured with Window's Snip & Sketch. Both have the same pixel size (bar a few pixels difference when doing a manual snip). The window capture is 72dpi but the window snip is 168dpi. Both are showing as the same size on my screen if I post them here (which suggests that the dpi setting is not a factor) but are displaying at 33% larger than the original window although the inserted image properties say 791 x 750 pixels. However, and this seems to be part of the problem, something is being too clever and applying the 175% scaling to the inserted image. Overall, for me there is a process of downsizing to about 75% when the image is uploaded followed by 175% scaling so anything which was sharp ends up fuzzy.

 

It's not a problem I've had with other forums although many allow only attachments or thumbnails which open to the size appropriate to the image pixels.

[Ishayin]

Only just noticed this thread. My solution to this problem has always been to just insert my images within a spoiler section to stop them taking over the place 😃